Chapter Text
The Belchers have always been a close knit family. The three kids were always each other's best friends and that stayed true. But as they grew older things got more complicated. There's nobody to blame for that, it's just how life goes.
Tina was in college, she had her own college friends, she lived in her college campus and, even though she came by every other weekend because she studied close, she wasn't there anywhere nearly as much as they were used to.
Gene still lived at home but he was rarely there. He was always out for some gig, be it music, drag or just their day to day standing behind the counter at the hi-fi emporium. Long gone were his days of just quitting when things got hard, they were always out and about getting shit done. And they were in a committed relationship with two people! He had enough time for three jobs and one full throuple! They’d probably been the one who changed the most.
Louise had her things under control too. She worked two jobs, three if you count the odd gig for Fischoeder. She had friends too, even if Rudy was in college out of state, and so was Jess…
Millie was still in the bay but even she had other friends if you can believe it.
But it was cool, Louise liked being alone, she always had.
“I think you could greatly benefit from therapy” Said Tina through the phone screen one odd Wednesday night. The abrupt movement of Louise sitting up straight in her chair made the phone shake a little, falling from its very secure position of being propped up against a half empty glass.
“Are you calling me mentally ill?” Gene gasped in fake offense, standing behind his younger sister braiding her hair. The change in Louise’s posture revealed many lumps in Gene's amazing attempt “Oh! I'm going to have to redo this”.
“I was actually talking to Louise, but it wouldn't hurt you, we could all go'' Tina responded with a smile on her face, which Louise thought was inappropriate for such a strong accusation.
It's not like she’s against therapy. If you had problems Louise would probably be the first to suggest you go talk to someone about them. But that's the thing, Louise didn't have problems. Or at least she was in deep denial about having any problems.
“Why me?” Louise asked, masking her more authentic offense with confusion.
Tina’s face showed a tinge of horror at realizing this. “Well, both of you have a lot on your plate, I said just you at first because Gene has an outlet for his emotions already” Tina continued carefully sensing her sister's poorly hidden feelings “Not that you don't have anyone, you can talk to us if you want to.. I mean I'm busy now with exams but..” The eldest looked down, her nervousness prevalent in her monotone voice, she didn't mean to attack her sister, she knew how sensitive Louise actually was and she was worried about her.
Louise could tell what was going on in Tina’s head, call it their “sister brain”, and though she would never admit it Tina was right, she had been a little lonely. But mostly, in thet moment, she just wanted to talk about anything else. “Tina” The youngest called, her sister's posture straightened, her whole face in frame again “Yeah.. I'll look into it”.
So she did.
Later that day, after her shift at the café, she went on her phone to search for psychologists near her. She told herself she was only doing this to fill time on her schedule because she got bored, might as well.
“It’s for Tina” she convinced herself. It was much easier to do things for others than for herself, maybe that should be brought up in therapy, she might.
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“So! Louise” Said the woman as she sat in her leather chair. Her name was Sonia Bautista and her office was right between Bob's Burgers and her other job at Better Latte Than Never. A perfect fit for Louise’s schedule “What brings you here?”
The spotlight was suddenly on her, what was she doing here? There was nothing wrong with her, she was just here to kill time, but she couldn't say that. She had to think quickly, every second she took could count towards this lady’s psycho analysis into her, she didn't know how shrinks worked!
“Ummmm” Great start, that hesitation probably meant narcissist in the DSM-5, Louise was sure of it. “I guess.. I was talking with my sister and she said it would be good as an outlet?” She did finger quotes on the last word, why? She didn't know, a nervous reaction, why was she nervous?
“Oh! You have a sister?” Asked the stranger, notepad on hand. Louise was relieved, she didn't like small talk but she was really good at it, a few years of working with Fischoeders contacts can make you really good at buttering people up. Maybe she can convince this woman that she was the perfect human, with the most polished psyche and then she'll leave her alone. Very healthy mentality.
“Yeah, I'm the youngest of three. Tina, she's the eldest, she's in Newark now studying English” She smiled, she was proud of her sister, seeing her pursue her passion. “Then there's my brother Gene, they're in a band with friends called The Tinsel Machine” She smiled again, her other sibling had also blossomed and bloomed and she was happy for him. For a second the little voice in her head whispered “what about you?” in the most mocking tone her consciousness could muster.
“Really? That's so interesting. I went to one of their shows a few weeks ago” Louise saw her write something down, then looked back up at her “You get along well?” Louise tried to get a read on Sonia’s expression, she wanted to know if she was doing well, if her answers were “correct”.
“Definitely, they're like my only friends” she joked, Sonia wrote something down. Fuck. “Not literally, I have other friends but.. I’m nowhere near as close to them” More scribbles of pen on paper. Louise felt her hands turning clammy so she rubbed them on the velvet of the couch.
“And what about your parents?” The knot in her stomach felt out of place. Louise had a great relationship with her parents, she loved them, there was no issue there, why did she feel like she was going to throw up?
“Well, I mean, my mom and I fought every now and then before high school, but not much more than any mother and daughter”. She hoped. Back in high school Jess would complain about her mom every second of the day and Louise remembered thinking “thank god my mom’s cool”.
She recalled her bickering with her mother from when she was a child and how much that had dissipated as she grew. She helped her through the horrible cramps of her first period, and they had gone together with Tina to shop for bras as the three of them were cursed with eternal back pain. Growing up came with learning a lot more about her mom and all the crazy anecdotes she had that she was too young to know about when she was a kid. She loved Linda Belcher, she was the best mom ever.
“Yeah, she’s cool” Was all she managed to say. The sound of scribbles continued but no more questions about Linda were asked, good.
“And your dad?”
Oh…
She loved her dad, she did. Her first word was dada. When she started crawling she would follow him around. She was always mesmerized by his work in the restaurant, swinging chef’s knives around, flipping patties and making little works of art between two buns.
And that still held true, she still thought her dad was cool, but when she was in high school things changed a little.
“Yeah.. we get along” Is all Louise said.
“You stopped smiling when you said that” Sonia stated, Louise hadn't noticed but it was true.
“Well, he’s… he’s a little strict sometimes, but he's cool.. I don't know” Thinking back at how much she idolized her father she had to fight back tears. She had always been told that you grow apart from your parents as you get older but she still wasn't ready. “I guess we were closer when I was a kid.. but things change, ya know? Teenagers don't really get along with their parents”
Her grades were never great, but during high school Bob started to care. Louise remembered how disappointed he looked when she said she might have to go to summer school in her freshman year. She hadn't thought it was a big deal, she had gone to summer school once before and he hadn't reacted like that at all. She ended up not going, she spent weekends studying to bring her grades up. She didn't fail a single class in highschool after that, Linda was always ecstatic and Bob mostly just… okay.
“So did you and your dad fight a lot during your high school years?” Louise blinked, she was racking her brain for a memory of a recent fight with her dad. With many to pick from, she didn't know what to say.
“We don't actually fight much, guess we don't disagree super often” The brunette started “We're very similar so at most we might just be butting heads over the stupidest things, like, this one time back in my sophomore year I made the horrifying mistake of adding veggie burgers to our menu” she stopped “our family has a restaurant, Bob's burgers, Bob's my dad”
The redheaded therapist nodded and gestured for her to continue.
“Yeah and, he's always hated the idea of “alternative proteins” and he's very stubborn. I honestly agree since I also only like beef burgers, but we had been under a lot of fire ever since dad fought with that vegan activism group that I just thought it would be good for business”. She remembered his face when she said that. It wasn't the same one as when she would switch the jokes on the burger board when she was a kid, he looked almost disgusted, like he never expected her to disagree with him and he was disappointed that she did.
“And what did he say?” The therapist asked, eyes set on observing every subtle movement in Louise's face muscles.
“He called me a sellout and ranted about how greed had overtaken so many great chefs and yadda yadda” Louise looked up and sighed in frustration, she had been so mad back then and she still kinda was “I just want us to actually do well! The only reason we haven't been evicted is because our landlord is an eccentric weirdo who took a liking to us but we owe him sooo muuuuuch moneeyy”
“And was money an issue growing up?” The cackle that escaped Louise after she heard this was honestly unwarranted but it was a knee jerk reaction.
“My room was a closet! The only reason it's not anymore is the very much blessed campus housing!” Another sigh left her. “My dad opened the restaurant almost 25 years ago and we’re still in the red!”
“It's not like it ever affected me!” Louise insisted. “We always had food, we were warm in the winter, its just-” The young woman sighed “We could always tell when a month was hard. Like there was this big grey cloud of stress over our heads and mom would cover it with paper rainbows while dad would just slouch around. And I was always more like him, guess that's why we fight a lot. No one likes a grump, not even another grump.”
As a young teen she started offering revenge taking services for a few bucks that she would later hide in her mom's purse. She wasn't going to say that though, that felt sad.
In her mid to late teens she would always try to come up with ideas to help market the restaurant, different changes they could make to the menu, or the dining area. She spoke of one one specific time where she said they had the potential to make enough money that their dad could hire actual employees.
“He got really mad” She recalled “He said that i was “showing my true colors” and that i “never really cared” and that couldn't be any further from the truth”
“I see, well! We definitely have things to talk about in our next session”, Said Sonia looking at the clock, closing her notebook and placing it on her lap “Is next Wednesday okay?”
“Yeah… same time?”
“Great! I’ll walk you out”