Work Text:
Brian walked into his therapist's office, taking a split second to glance around the room before closing the door behind him. His therapist, Kelly, motioned for him to sit down in any of the chairs available and said, "Have a seat."
He chose the same chair he'd chosen during his intake appointment and every proceeding session. It was in the corner closest to the door, which he chose simply for the proximity and to silently tell his therapist how much he didn't want to be there. He'd verbally tell her, too.
Kelly sat across from him instead of behind her desk.
"What's happened since our last appointment?" Kelly asked.
"I work," Brian gave a simple answer.
"What else? You can share as much or as little as you like," Kelly asked again.
"Then that's as much as I'm sharing," Brian almost scoffed, wondering to himself if his therapist was stupid. Why would he WILLINGLY share anything when he didn't wanna be here in the first place?
"I know you can share as much as you want, but that's a VERY brief answer. How come you don't feel like sharing more?" Kelly asked a slightly different question this time in hopes of getting more answers.
"I could tell you I did some routine maintenance on my Desk Jockeys and you'd twist it to somehow say I have a personality disorder. You're all... predictable," Brian rolled his eyes.
"No, I wouldn't. Not unless you were displaying traits of a personality disorder while you were doing maintenance," Kelly wrote something down on the notepad she always carried around, "But it's okay if you don't feel like sharing. Since you've mentioned work, let's talk about that. You haven't told me what you do for work other than working for C.O.G.S., Inc."
Brian seemed to hesitate for a few seconds before saying, "I plan for projects because everyone else is too stupid to figure out what they're supposed to do for themselves. They call me the Prethinker."
"What do you mean by everyone else is too stupid?" Kelly asked.
"I mean that everyone else is too stupid. Did I not make that clear the first time?" Brian had to hold back another scoff. How was it difficult to understand that he was smarter than everyone else and they needed an intellectual like him to tell them what to do? Kelly was probably just as stupid as his coworkers if she couldn't understand that much.
"Give me examples of their stupidity. I want to hear about why they need your help," Kelly tried to use a different prompt.
"Projects fail without me. Nobody else can delegate work and plan every last detail or think of every possible problem except for me! My coworkers are too stupid and don't think enough, especially that-" Brian realized he was about to share much more than he should be, so he left that sentence unfinished and chose to replace it with a lie. "Ahem. As I was saying, especially that Boardbot department."
"Are you sure it's not somebody specific you're thinking of right now?" Kelly gave him a 'knowing' look. Brian seemed baffled for a few seconds and kind of stammered out nonsense, so she continued, "Tell me about the coworker you don't like."
Brian was silent for a couple seconds before sighing, "Fine. His name is Buck Ruffler and he's always messing up my plans at the last second. Sometimes they end up better, but most of the time..." Brian's brain started to turn red, "He ruins everything!"
"What else?" Kelly wrote down something on her notepad.
"There was... one time. That idiot messed up my plans and got himself hurt in the process! And the higher-ups said it was my fault even though I didn't touch him. I even told him not to do it," Brian scoffed, "I hate him."
"What exactly happened in this incident?" Kelly asked.
Brian realized the information he'd just shared, which made him get quiet. Nearly a full minute later, he decided to try to change the subject entirely by saying, "Is that a genderfluid pride flag on your wall?"
"Yes, it is. But let's not change the subject- I'd still like to hear about this incident with your coworker Buck," Kelly chuckled. She was well accustomed to patients trying to change the subject. She already knew how to work with difficult clients like Brian.
"I already told you about it. Buck hurt himself and I was wrongfully deemed responsible for his stupidity," Brian could feel himself getting nervous, but he swallowed those feelings back as soon as he felt them. Someone as smart and logical as him wouldn't be bothered by it.
"But what about all the details? It seems this incident means a lot to you if it's something you immediately brought up and are having a tough time talking about," Kelly tried to give him a little bit of reassurance as a way to help him open up more.
Brian wanted to bolt out of the room so badly. Unfortunately, he couldn't just leave because Ben was waiting in the lobby for him {mostly to personally see to it that he actually went to his appointment}. He was forced to stay here and talk about it.
But that was okay... he'd prepared more lies.
"It was a project about the ocean. Mary had suggested it and it got enough traction for it to actually happen. Buck wanted to use real wildlife even though we'd already established that would contradict the message of the project and therefore get less sales, but he didn't care. He went to dive into the ocean, but he didn't realize how shallow it was and severely damaged himself on a rock. I was blamed for it because I was apparently responsible for another adult's actions," Brian rolled his eyes. He wasn't sure if he'd delivered his lie convincingly enough, but he'd repeated this one a couple times already. He didn't like talking about it in general, but talking about what really happened was too much for him.
"You seem really detached from that story. Normally I'd think a patient is dissociating, but given your history of lying in these appointments... I'd like to ask if that's another lie," Kelly sighed.
Brian hadn't been expecting to be called out so openly like that. He literally flinched, his entire brain seeming to stop for a couple seconds while he processed what had just happened. Kelly had never been so openly confrontational, and the more direct wording seemed to strike a chord with him for some reason. What was he supposed to say?
After thinking about it for a while, Brian decided to just come clean with the truth. Shifting uncomfortably in his seat and nervously glancing around the room, he spoke in a hushed voice as if Ben could possibly overhear it, "Fine. It was a lie. The truth is... well... I made a mistake on him during routine maintenance. I messed up really bad and broke him."
Brian could feel all of his pride draining with that statement. He kept trying to reassure himself that someone as smart as him couldn't make a mistake, but he knew that was false because he'd just admitted to one he made. A big one, too.
"When did this happen?" Kelly asked.
"...Two days ago," Brian softly admitted. He'd been trying to put Kelly under the impression it had happened a while ago, but it seemed he'd failed by telling the truth himself. He didn't even know why he'd admitted any of this in the first place.
Kelly wrote down something on her notepad and then said, "It must feel pretty awful to make a mistake that big in the workplace, especially with how much you really value your intelligence."
"No! An intellectual like me doesn't get upset over something like that. It was just a fluke. With how many things I do, it's practically statistically impossible I won't mess up at least once," Brian kind of rambled on with a bunch of nonsense about how smart he was, mostly trying to reassure himself.
It clearly didn't seem to work because a single oily tear fell from his eye. Brian immediately stopped rambling and wiped it away quickly, feeling embarrassed that he'd got worked up enough to have a single tear fall. He could feel more coming, and there was no way he was going to cry in front of his therapist {or anyone, for that matter}. He stood up quickly and blurted out some excuse about needing to use the bathroom and then left. He didn't leave the bathroom for the next 20 minutes until he'd felt himself calm down enough and he didn't have any signs of crying apparent on him. Well, other than the couple of oil stains he'd accidentally got on his work clothes... But he could explain those away as spills during maintenance.
Taking a shaky breath, Brian whispered to himself that the accident would never happen again. He was smart and would learn from his mistake. He'd never make one ever again! He had to be perfect at all times.
Knock, knock, knock.
"Brian? Are you alright in there?" Ben asked through the door.
"I'm fine!" was all Brian responded with. He didn't know why Ben knew he was in the bathroom, but he wasn't gonna accidentally tell him something under the assumption that he already had that information. He'd let his boyfriend do the talking, since he was good at that anyways.
"Alright, but your appointment is over and Kelly wants to wrap up with you," Ben said, "I'll wait out here until you're read to come out."
Brian grumbled. If Ben was waiting he knew he couldn't pretend he went back to wrap up with his therapist, and he also knew he couldn't hide in the bathroom forever. His suffering would only be prolonged if he stayed in there any longer, so he decided to just come out.
Ben and Kelly were waiting there, and Kelly lead him back to her office while Ben returned to the lobby.
The two of them sat back down in the spots they'd been in at the start of the appointment, and Kelly looked at her notepad before sighing.
"Okay, Brian. I have some homework I'd like you to do over the week, and I'll be requiring proof you actually did it so you can't lie your way out of it this time," Kelly grabbed a piece of paper from behind her that had been sitting on her desk, "This is a daily log for the whole week. You list the date, rate how well it went on a scale of one to ten, say one positive thing that happened, one negative thing that happened, and as something optional you can add any other thoughts here. I'm gonna make you do this for at least three days out of the week before our next appointment."
Brian didn't say anything, so Kelly added, "Is that do-able for you?"
"Yes," Brian huffed. He didn't like it, but he also didn't want Ben to say anything about it so he knew it'd just be easier to comply.
With that, Kelly sent him out the door with his 'homework' and Brian went out to the lobby to meet with Ben.
~~~Bonus Scene~~~
"You have Generalized Anxiety Disorder," Kelly said.
"I do NOT. Someone as smart as me doesn't have any mental illnesses. I'm only here because Ben is making me and you know that," Brian rolled his eyes.
"You had a panic attack last week because you thought Ben didn't like you anymore because he sent you two hearts instead of his usual three," Kelly cited a recent incident of Brian acting anxiously.
"Listen here, Kelly. There is a logical explanation for that!"