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The waiting room was cold yet stuffy, a combination he only saw in medical settings; soulless white walls with nowhere near enough windows to make up for the amount of bodies in the shallow space. It didn’t help that most were ill, stressed or suffering, worsening the atmosphere to one that was almost exclusively found in medical settings, a unique sort of horror that was hard to recreate. He kept making eye contact with strangers just as uncomfortable as himself, looking away only to catch another’s eye, a twisted game of catch he couldn’t stand. Curly had picked his cuticles bloody trying to distract himself from the ticking of a clock on the far wall, each one bringing him closer to his designated time, dreading the appointment no matter how necessary it might be. He was doing this for Anya, he thought with attempted conviction, to keep himself from burdening her any more.
She’d been kind enough to accompany him to the appointment, resting a gentle hand on his knee as it bounced anxiously, an attempt to calm him without betraying her own nerves. He’d tried to ensure her it wasn’t necessary, that he’d be fine on his own, but she’d insisted, saying it was only right since she’d convinced him to go to therapy in the first place. She’d begun attending herself about six weeks before, returning exhausted and tear-stained but with a peace to her that was welcomed by them both. Talking things out had begun to steadily chip at the calcified shell trauma had trapped her in, leaving behind the Anya he’d met when the ship set sail. Well, not entirely, not just yet, but she seemed to emerge more every day.
Perhaps it was foolish to anticipate her return, when Anya had likely forever been changed by what she’d been through, but Curly enjoyed hoping. No matter how unrealistic, the more unrealistic the better; he could lose himself in hoping, the same as he lost himself in terrible memories. The former was preferred, didn’t leave him tortured or trembling the same, but oftentimes he didn’t have the luxury of choice. He soaked in liquid hope while he could and let the dull nature of reality pass him by. Anya said it was unhealthy, that the longer he stewed in his own head the harder it would be to escape it and return to normal life. He believed her wholeheartedly, but couldn’t imagine a reality where real life was better than what he could imagine, and thus brushed off her advice.
He blinked and realised she was looking at him, with that tragic expression she only wore when he was worrying her. The position of the clock hands had jumped far too much since he last looked, and he bit his lower lip, trying to root himself back to earth. Her hand moved from his knee to his hand, squeezing bruisingly hard, and it was enough to rid him of the haze. She offered him a small, anxious smile, and he tried not to notice that she was inspecting his mouth for injury.
Since she’d caught him burning himself, she’d grown paranoid of him doing so again, or any other behaviour that might cause himself injury. It was sweet as much as it was irritating, but he couldn’t exactly claim it was unnecessary when she’d caught him in the act. He turned over the hand he’d burnt and looked at the fresh pink skin on its back, still slightly shiny and delicate. Anya followed his gaze, and a silent understanding passed between them as she squeezed his hand again, that her actions were understood, and he didn’t resent her for them. She needed that reassurance at times, even though he was sure he wouldn’t have survived the return to earth without her.
“James Curly?” Curly jumped as a mature female voice echoed across the waiting area, and he looked up to see a woman looking to be in her mid-forties, dark hair in a long plait down her back and wearing a simple t-shirt and jeans. It had been so long since he’d heard his full name that it was a bit of a shock to the system, and it took Anya gently nudging him for him to stand, stumbling awkwardly over his feet as he did so. The woman offered him a kind, patient look, gesturing for him to follow her, and he complied, glancing unsurely back at Anya as he did so. She offered him a double thumbs up and a nervous smile, looking almost as worried as he himself felt, and it drew a smile out of him with how endearing it was.
He was doing this for Anya, to make their living situation easier for her, so she wouldn’t have to feel responsible for him any longer. He’d be honest, be cooperative, make this work, for her sake.
He followed his apparent therapist down a long impersonal hallway, lined with glaringly white numbered doors that instantly had him on edge. She was saying something, and kept glancing at him, but didn’t seem to have been expecting an answer since she accepted his silence without protest. It was almost at the dead end of the corridor before the stepped into a room, larger than the size he feared it might have been and painted a deep calm blue. There were two long sofas opposite one another with a long oak table in between, each in a greyish-cream colour. The woman sat comfortably in one before gesturing invitationally towards the other, indicating for Curly to sit. He did so, far more hesitantly, and did his best to ignore her eyes on him.
“Hi, James-“
“Curly.” He couldn’t help but cut her off, far too unused to his first name to be comfortable, but she only smiled, not at all fazed.
“I’m sorry, Curly, I didn’t mean to make you at all uncomfortable.” He waved off her apologies, “It’s nice to meet you, my name is Allison, but you can call me Ally. I understand you wanted to discuss some recent traumatic events?”
“Uh, yeah.” Curly swallowed, instantly out of his depth, “I mean, some recent, and I don’t know if they’re traumatic-“
“How about we chat about them, and we’ll figure that out?” Ally interrupted, still smiling all the while. It was more than a little disarming, and Curly shifted uncomfortably. “Let’s start by getting to know one another, just to make things a little bit more relaxed. How about you tell me a little about yourself.”
Curly opened his mouth to respond, to offer anything, but it was like he’d lost the ability to speak. He couldn’t think of a damn thing to say, not about what he liked or his job or his friends; not without exposing a great deal more than he was comfortable with. It felt as though everything had fallen apart in the last couple of years, and he’d been reduced to simply suffering his own circumstances, without any of the passion for life he’d previously harboured. Before the Tulpar was doomed, and everything with Jimmy went down, he’d already grown tired of the endless missions, of being the one responsible.
He’d grown tired of the threat of a lurking shadow, of nights where he didn’t know if he’d be sleeping alone and had no choice over the matter. He’d grown exhausted, defending and supporting someone he knew was not good for the job they were in, but too damn cowardly to do anything about it. Jimmy had reduced him to putty in the former’s hands, a mouldable accessory to his own career that he used as he pleased, no matter what that entailed. Curly hadn’t been himself, not for a long time; he’d been ‘Captain’ and ‘Jimmy’s Friend’. ‘Plaything’, Jimmy had once whispered in his ear, wiping a stray tear from Curly’s cheek, a vile whisper that had stuck with him and swam constantly in his thoughts.
Curly shuddered, releasing a brief but audibly shaky breath, and tried not to take notice of Ally before him, not to read into the expression on her face. He was probably a psychologist’s walking wet dream, so fucked up they’d have a field day with him. The thought didn’t anger him, like he thought it would; it just made him feel hopeless. Had he really let himself be reduced to this? Someone who’d suffered, someone who couldn’t cope, someone whose behaviour was something for his friends to worry over. Could he ever be independent again, if he was this fucked up?
Anya felt responsible for him. It was obvious. She didn’t want to follow the path of becoming a therapist (lord only knew that the evaluations she’d been forced to conduct on the Tulpar had put her off for life), but monitoring others was a big part of being a doctor, she’d told him so. People would put their lives in her hands, and for that to happen she had to be trustworthy, someone who could read the intricacies of a patient’s experience and reassure them accordingly. However, it had only made her more concerned for Curly, reading into his behaviour more than ever and using her newfound knowledge to help him.
It was probably good for her, getting first hand experience in such a manner, but Curly had felt more like a test subject than a man as of late.
“How about I start? That might make things easier,” He nodded, relieved despite everything, and she smiled, “I live with my wife and our daughter, who’s two, and our cats. Outside of work, I like to play video games, and I enjoy ice skating. It’s quite alright if you can’t think of anything ‘important’, just whatever you feel comfortable enough to share.”
Curly nodded again, biting the inside of his lip, and Ally had the curtesy to look away while he tried to think, turning her gaze to her notebook as if she was surveying its contents. He realised his knee was bouncing, his boot making a constant slight thudding against the carpeted floor, and he did his best to still it, no matter whether it was helping. Such an action betrayed anxiety, and Curly was good at feigning confidence. He wouldn’t let this woman stop him, no matter how qualified she might be to do so.
“I moved from Scotland when I was fifteen.” Is the first thing he manages, and immediately her attention returns to him, “My parents split, and I moved here with my mum. I, uh, lied about my age, joined the air force, got into flight training from there. Been a captain for a freighter company for the last thirteen years of my life, until about three months ago.”
“Ah, yes, you were made redundant, if I remember rightly?”
Yeah, but not before he’d shot one of his crew. It was something that was written into the contracts when working in the Pony Express; the captain of the ship had the authority to kill if necessary. It was a rule too open to abuse for comfort, which was likely why Curly’s generally jovial and easygoing nature set others at ease when on board with him. That didn’t mean you couldn’t be punished for it, of course; the ship had cameras that could be tapped into from Earth if necessary, and they’d know if the murder was unprecedented.
That camera footage extended across, however, including the sleeping quarters, which meant that with a tiny bit of digging, the reason he’d taken Jimmy out would be obvious. He’d assaulted Anya in the sleeping quarters, it seemed, from her questioning as to why they weren’t more well protected, and Curly knew there was plenty of footage of his own, dating back years. They’d been more concerned with covering that up than anything, basically blackmailing Curly and buying his silence to avoid public spectacle. Not that they should have worried; the only one he’d have wanted justice for would be Anya, but he’d done his best to offer that himself. He should’ve put a stop to Jimmy’s behaviour years ago, it wasn’t exactly a company issue when he never complained in the first place.
That was too much to offer as an explanation, however, so he simply nodded.
“Has losing your job been difficult for you, considering you were employed there for so long?”
Curly scoffed, unable to help himself, and she tipped her head in confusion, a non-verbal indication for him to continue.
“I haven’t had the best time, in the past few years,” That was putting it mildly, he thought to himself, resisting the urge to smile, “I needed a change. Couldn’t have come at a better time, honestly, not sure I would have survived another journey.”
That made her scribble something down, and he did his best to school his expression, in case he was giving something away without realising. It occupied her attention for several long moments before she fixed her attention back upon him in an almost predatory manner, and he tensed.
“You mentioned in your screening that you had a friend who passed away, which has been hard for you. Shall we talk about him?”
Curly flinched, and it was the first time an honest seriousness entered her expression. She returned to the notebook almost immediately, scribbling furiously, and he tried to dispel the urge to snatch it from her and toss it out a window. It wouldn’t exactly help his case in trying to prove that he was mentally stable. She hardly took her eyes off of Curly, clearing trying to show she was still listening, but it only served to make him more uncomfortable. Picking up on this, she put the pen down and smiled at him again, sickeningly reassuring. He imagined the look on her face if he tossed the notebook, and it was almost enough to keep him from doing so.
“If you’d rather not talk about anything, Curly, do just let me know. This is only our first session, I’m only coming on this strongly due to the interest you expressed in talking about what’s happened to you. Would you say that’s something you struggle with?”
“Yeah” He answered unthinkingly, and she began writing again. He watched the pen’s looping motion as if fascinated, and tried not to think about what she might be writing about him.
“Okay, well, we can work on that.” Again, the smile. She couldn’t mean it right? She offered that smile to every patient that walked through her office, she must do. It wasn’t as if he was special. He couldn’t understand why it bothered him so badly. “Curly? Can you hear me?”
He blinked and realised he’d been spacing out. She’d tipped her head trying to make eye contact, raising a hand in an attempt at alerting him.
“Ah, sorry. What were you saying?”
“I was going to ask how your friend’s death has made you feel?”
“Uh…”
Under normal circumstances that wouldn’t be a hard question. Sad, angry, depressed, scared, you name it, but those tended to be the cases where the death had been out of your hands, unexpected or inevitable or just plain tragic. But Curly had been judge, jury and executioner, the one to decide Jimmy’s fate, the one to hold the gun and the one to mourn him once the deed had been done. No emotion Curly could feel regarding Jimmy felt correct, every avenue an opportunity for ridicule or judgement. She would probably think he was a terrible person but be unable to say it, forced to continue as if nothing was amiss because he was her client. She was still looking at him expectantly, and he realised this was not a question he could stall his way out of answering.
“Sad.” Honest, but not at all eloquent, and certainly not enough to satisfy the woman in front of him. It wasn’t enough even to satisfy him, far from enough to encompass all he’d felt about and for Jimmy in their years of supposed friendship, “Conflicted, I guess? Maybe- maybe relieved.”
“Relieved?” She pounced on the word like a cat upon a mouse, and Curly blanched, caught out, “Why do you think you feel that way, Curly?”
“Please, just be honest, Curly, it will help,” Anya had practically begged in the car on the way over, while Curly had the excuse of looking at the road ahead, “Tell them everything you’ve told me, at least, even better if you say the things you haven’t told me. I know there’s stuff you can’t imagine being honest about, but it’ll help, I swear it will. You need to stop holding what you’ve been through in before you implode.”
He owed it to her to be honest. They’d grown close enough that she’d be able to tell if he lied, and though she wouldn’t be upset with him, she would be disappointed. If he didn’t try, she’d never stop worrying about him, and continue to feel responsible for his well-being. She’d never prioritise herself if that was the case, keep holding herself back for Curly’s sake and ruin the chance she’d finally gotten at the future she wanted. It would be selfish not to, no matter how uncomfortable it made him.
“He wasn’t a good guy.” The admittance left him shaky, but he’d be damned if he was going to give up now, “I didn’t realise until it was too late, and I had to… I had to kill him.”
He couldn’t remember if he’d clarified that on the questionnaire he’d completed prior to the appointment; he probably hadn’t. The therapy was free, something he’d been offered already as a captain as part of the Pony Express but had become compensation for their traumatic voyage. The company was obviously aware of what he’d done, but they’d deemed it a worthy cause to keep from an expensive lawsuit. He felt bad for the few representatives left defending such a shitty company; those he’d met were far too kind and unfamiliar to have been around long, clearly innocent of the crimes they were trying to defend themselves from.
If Ally was surprised, fearful, disgusted at his action, she was a skilled actress. Perhaps it was part of the job description to be such. Her face remained impassive, with just the right tinge of curiosity and kindness to set one at ease. He could not trust such a lying expression. She leaned forward, notebook and pen readied in hand, like she was anticipating him saying something particularly juicy. Though he knew, deep down, that is was unlikely that her intentions were so nefarious, he couldn’t help how deeply his mistrust ran, and how quickly he’d begun to foster a hatred for someone he’d just met.
“Why did you have to kill him, Curly?” His jaw audibly snapped shut, and she seemed to realise the gravity of Jimmy’s actions, growing somber, “I’m not judging you, I just want to fully grasp the situation you were in.”
“I-“ He glanced towards the door, imagining Anya’s face, and she followed his gaze with understanding.
“Everything you say in this room is confidential, Curly. I’m aware that your action was one of necessity, but I am not here to judge your cause or reason. I simply want to understand where your head is, and how I can help you. If you need some time-“
“He raped my friend” He said bluntly, watching her for any open sign of reaction. He found none. “I had to keep her safe, I knew he would do it again.”
“I’m sorry, Curly, that’s truly terrible. Is there a reason you were so certain?”
Damn her. Damn her and all her fucking questions, and that waiting pen. He felt naked, like this, exposed and raw in such a vulnerable way when in company with a stranger. It was why, despite company policy, he’d never taken up on the offer of therapy post-mission; digging things up had never been effective in coping for him. Pushing things down, forgetting, throwing bad memories aside in favour of his duty has always been easier. Honestly, he was never on Earth long enough to live with the consequences of his coping mechanism (or lack thereof), used to hiding it all behind the unflappable mask of ‘captain’.
He’d never stopped being busy for long enough to have to survive in his own head, unaware of the problems he’d given himself. Not long enough to realise just how badly Jimmy had fucked him up, and how killing him just to put a stop to it had only made it worse, somehow. Not long enough to truly fathom how much he’d grown to hate the job he’d worked his whole life for, but couldn’t recognise himself without it. Without his uniform, without the hum of the Tulpar’s outdated engines, without the man he couldn’t escape from until he killed him, was there any ‘Curly’ left?
“Curly.” He flinched, breath hitching, and leant back in his seat as he realised she’d done the opposite, resting her elbows on her knees to get closer to him. He hated it. He hated her. “What made you so sure that he would do it again?”
“I don’t know!” He snapped, and she didn’t react, frighteningly still in the wake of his outburst, “I knew him, okay? I know- knew what he was like. He would have done it again, trust me.”
“If you ‘knew what he was like’, why did you continue to be friends with him?” Curly‘s jaw dropped in shock, though he quickly regained control over it and shut his mouth with an audible clock, “I only ask because I feel I’m not getting the whole picture here. You’re his friend, aware of what he’s like and unsurprised by his actions against your other friend, however you’re so determined to not let him commit such an act again and so certain that he will that you kill him? You have to admit it isn’t an entirely logical pathway from my perspective, unless there’s something I’m missing?”
“I just-“ Curly scrubbed a hand over his forehead, almost hopeless in the wake of her questioning. His knees were bouncing, both jittery with anxiety, but this time he didn’t have the will or the means to stop them. “I just knew, I knew what he would do to her, I knew he wouldn’t stop-“
“How did you know, Curly?”
“Because he did it to me.” The words and their fury rang dissonant through the room. “He did it again and again and he said he was sorry a million times, but he never stopped, no matter how much I begged. Begging didn’t work, my tears didn’t work, fighting back didn’t work. I gave up a long time ago like a fucking coward, let him do whatever he wanted to me. It was years, my whole life was spent at his discretion. There was no way I could leave him alive to do the same thing to Anya. So I killed him.”
Curly was left breathing heavily like he’d just run a marathon, anger and overwhelming and misery coalescing, and he couldn’t look at Ally. He couldn’t. Not when she was silent, with no bullshit reassurances to placate him. A wave of sudden desperate melancholy overcame him, and he hid his face in his hands, trying to disguise the tears straining at his lash line. It was futile when such guttural sobs strained behind his ribs, as if set free by his admittance. He watched through his fingers as she held out a box of tissues, placing it on the table in front of him, though he ignored it in favour of preserving his shame.
“Thank you for telling me that, Curly,” He shrugged, still refusing to look at her, “Though I cannot exactly endorse killing anyone, I understand the circumstances you were in allowed you little other choice. What you did for your friend’s sake was incredibly selfless.”
Curly scoffed, scrubbing at his eyes.
“Do you not agree? She questioned, and Curly shrugged once again, finding the situation more humorous than he probably should have.
“I could have stopped it from ever happening in the first place, if I hadn’t been such a coward. I could have gotten him fired years ago, but I could handle it, and I didn’t want him to lose his job, so I didn’t. It was my selfishness that got her hurt in the first place.”
“Curly, you were in a difficult position yourself,” She debated, “You were friends, and like you said, this was something he’d been doing to you for years. I imagine he gave you reason to believe that something bad would happen if you were honest?”
Setting his doubts aside, just for a moment, Curly nodded.
“Said no one would take me seriously again, and I’d ruin both of our lives for no reason. Always insisted he’d never do it again, then broke his promises. I was so stupid to have ever believed him.”
“You weren’t stupid, you trusted him. He took advantage of your friendship to get what he wanted, and that reflects badly on no one but him.”
Curly tugged at his hair with a frustrated hand, trying or control the frustration coursing through him.
“I’m stronger than him- than he was.” Ally looked at him like she was waiting for him to continue, unable to pick up on the correlation, “I was taller than him, more well built. I could have fought him off if I really wanted to, and I didn’t always… complain, y’know?”
“Would he have stopped if you had?”
Curly growled in frustration, an embarrassingly animalistic sound, and gripped harder on his hair, gritting his teeth as he glared at his lap.
“You don’t get it! I can’t complain if I let him do it, can I? I basically lay there and took it, and I never said anything about it, so how can I get mad?”
Ally was looking at him like he was pitiful. Like she knew so much better than he did, like he was foolish. He couldn’t stand it. It made him feel cornered in a manner he couldn’t explain, almost emasculated. Every instinct he possessed was screaming for him to defend himself against her words, to continue to make excuses until she understood his side. It was a futile attempt, but these were the defences he’d used to reason with himself for years, to convince himself that things really weren’t bad, as Jimmy had helped to convince him. If she managed to undermine them, to convince him otherwise within an hour’s session, then how the hell would he cope when he left? He’d barely managed to hold himself together before this, before he’d been forced to drag it all up again and had his reasoning undermined. If he had no more reason to believe that he hadn’t deserved in some regard, or the situation hadn’t been as bad as Anya tried to convince him it was, then what the hell would he do with himself?
“Curly, you don’t have to continue if you’re overwhelmed, we can pause here for a while-“
“No!” The walls felt like they were closing in, “No, I’m fine, you just don’t get it! He needed it, okay? We discussed it, and I said I was fine with it! It was only when I started arguing with him about it there were problems, okay? If I’d just kept letting him do whatever he needed, he wouldn’t have even had to look at Anya, and then she wouldn’t have got pregnant, and she’d be okay. I would have been fucked up either way, but I wouldn’t have dragged her down with me and I wouldn’t have had to kill him.”
“So, you believe that because he claimed he ‘needed’ sex to survive, it’s your fault that your friend got assaulted?”
“There’s no ‘believed’ about it!” He couldn’t breathe. Why couldn’t he breathe? “I think more than anyone I would know how often and how badly he needed to have sex since I was the one on the fucking receiving end of it.”
“Curly, I’m not trying to discredit what you’re saying, not in the slightest, but ‘needing’ to have sex doesn’t give him the right to assault you whenever he chooses.”
“He didn’t assault me-”
“You yourself said that tears and begging didn’t work, that you ‘gave up’ and let him do what he wanted to you. That doesn’t exactly sound consensual to me. I understand where your guilt is coming from, but you were a victim too, even if you said yes once or he ‘needed’ to do it, okay?” Culy tried to retort, to argue with her, but he couldn’t gather enough breath to speak, “If you believed that he would become a threat to others if you didn’t allow him to have sex with you, and that what he did to your friend was a direct consequence of that action, then you did not agree to sleeping with him, you were coerced. He placed the blame upon you and manipulated you into believing there would be negative consequences if you were to deny him, and used raping your friend as revenge to make you feel guilty. That does not mean it was your fault, the only one at fault is him, for doing such a horrific action, alright?”
“But… but if I hadn’t defended him-”
“Then he would have found someone else to help him get what he wanted, and the same thing would have happened. This was not your fault, Curly, do you understand?” ‘You made me do this, I wouldn’t have had to hurt her if you would stop fighting it’, “Curly? Can you hear me?”
He could, and he wanted desperately to tell her, but his vision was tunnelling, and he felt so intensely dizzy and nauseous that he was sure he was going to pass out. He pressed a hand to his chest, like he could relieve the pressure of his lungs trying to let him inhale and failing, but it did nothing. His ears rang, something between a hum and a whistle reverberating about his skull, and his skin burned like he’d willingly stepped into a hot oven, like he was boiling from the inside. Curly’s surroundings faded into static, lost in a sudden uncontrollable onslaught of panic, and he felt like he was dying. He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t see, and he could sense the buzz of someone speaking to him through all the ringing but couldn’t make out a single word. The hand on his chest was his only root to earth as it clenched itself in his shirt, scratching down the skin beneath it.
He could have been lost in his panic for seconds or hours, he couldn’t tell, but he began coming back to awareness at the sound of a familiar voice, soft-pitched and tired. A hand hesitantly stilled the one on his chest, warmer and smaller than his own, and he let it, let it gently grasp his own and its thumb run over his palm in a kind manner. Slowly, his vision cleared to reveal Anya knelt before him with a reassuring smile, clasping his hand and letting it rest in the warm space beneath her chin. It was a position he himself had taken a hundred times over the last few months, comforting her after a nightmare or a panic attack, and to see her returning the care in such a manner had tears brimming in his eyes. He’d always been overly emotional as a kid, quick to tears over something as simple as a grazed knee or a dead bug, but he’d grown out of it as he’d gotten taller and broader. No one wanted to comfort a kid the size of an adult, and he’d been close to six foot by the age of thirteen. That stability was another thing Jimmy had taken from him, regressing him to the easy overwhelm of his childhood that was just as embarrassing now as it had been then.
Anya reached out to wipe at the tears that had begun to trail down his cheeks, and though his instinct was to pull away, to deny the gesture and scrub his eyes himself, he let her dry his eyes with the pads of her thumbs. Their affection had grown so easy that it was rare he felt the need to deny it anymore, especially when they’d grown to rely on each other for comfort. With Curly’s mum long dead and the rest of his family estranged in Scotland, like Anya’s own family, it hadn’t exactly been difficult to grow reliant on each other for understanding, especially after going through similar situations concerning the same guy. That was why he was so worried that she would feel responsible for him, since she already considered herself to be in his debt for allowing her to live with him. For the moment, however, he simply allowed himself to take comfort in her presence, following the calming motion she was making with her free hand, a clear indication to try and calm his breathing. Slowly, he began to calm, the adrenaline in his blood slowing to allow him some peace, and Anya’s expression became less strained as it filled with relief rather than the plasticity of a professional mask. He was proud of her for how convincing it was, even though they literally lived together; despite all her self-doubt, he truly believed she was made to go into medicine.
“You feeling a little better?” Anya questioned, and he nodded reassuringly, if a little tiredly, “Alright, lets head out then. You did a good job today.”
Curly tried to look past her, towards where Ally stood and check whether her expression betrayed any irritation at his behaviour, but Anya leant to block his view, giving him a knowing look.
“You’ve done enough for today. You can start slow.” She reassured with finality, and he gave in, shrugging and allowing her to lead him from the room. He caught the therapist’s eye as he left the room, and the warmth there solidified his contentedness; her expression was kind and understanding, and he felt a little bad for how harshly he’d thought about her over the course of the appointment. Anya was decisive in how she lead him, practically dragging him from the building as Curly stumbled behind her, scrubbing at his face self-consciously as he was pulled through the waiting room. Finally, they made it out of the automatic doors, and the abrupt difference in temperature made him shudder. Anya turned abruptly to face him, having twigged the movement, and he was shocked at the distress in her face.
“Anya, what-”
“I’m so sorry!” She cried, her hair whipping about her face in a dramatic fashion that would have been amusing if Curly weren’t so worried, “You were so hesitant about this and I basically forced you, and that was a really bad panic attack, Curly, I’m sorry! I should have known you weren’t ready.”
“Woah, hold on,” Curly pulled away from her to raise his hands in mock surrender, “I was going to say you were right to persuade me!”
Anya’s jaw slackened with shock as her eyebrows pinched in simultaneous confusion, and Curly couldn’t help the slightly fragile laugh that slipped from his lips.
“Yes, it absolutely sucked to drag up everything that happened with Jimmy, but I needed to get some shit off my chest to feel any better. Before the whole, y’know, panic attack thing, we were actually getting somewhere regarding how I feel about… about him. Felt about him, I guess. Couple more sessions like that and I might actually get some shit figured out.”
“So, you’re not, like, mad at me?” Anya asked hesitantly, and he shook his head, walking towards her and enveloping her gently in a hug.
“Of course not. I should be thanking you.” He felt her sag in relief against him, relaxing into the hold as her forehead came to rest on his shoulder. It must have looked odd, between the rushed manner in which they’d left and the way they were now loitering outside, but all that mattered was the understanding between them. Though his first therapy session could have gone better, it was certainly a step in the right direction, one that would hopefully help them both in the direction of healing. It wasn’t as if he expected things to improve overnight; if anything, things might be worse for a while as he tried to face what had happened to him, but facing it was key if he ever hoped to get past it. Simple survival was no longer an option; he wanted to live.
He squeezed Anya a little tighter, and both of them pretended not to feel the other’s tears as they took a second to process the possibility of getting past this. The Tulpar and the mark it had left upon them felt, just for a moment, distant, and he'd be damned if it wasn't relief, no matter how brief it might be.