The Logs of Dr. S. Cratch
Log #1- Karkat
The meeting starts a little more quietly than I expected. In fact, the boy hasn't really said much or replied much to my affable attempts at small conversation. Yes, no, and vulgar replies such as "piss off" and "fuck you". Those two I expected.
He has the expected look of an introverted insomniac, as his father described him beforehand. I can only imagine how his daily, home life is. He's not well off, but he's not poor either; I consider it to be the perfect region for relative happiness. But, of course, that's the furthest thing away from reality.
His clothes and sagged position suggest he hasn't been paying attention to his look lately. Lately being for the majority of his aware adolescence. His eyes are bagged, his scowl everlasting. In honesty, I would've diagnosed him with bipolar disorder the moment he stepped in should I have not known he had been already diagnosed.
For a long while, the sound of a clock and my clicking pen fill the empty silence. I sigh, exasperated. "Mr. Vantas, I understand that you have absolutely no desire to be here." He scoffs at my lie at understanding. "However, that doesn't mean you're making any headway."
He blinks at this. "Headway? The literal fuck does that mean?" It looks like he hasn't been told by his father yet.
I remove my glasses for the impending rage session. "Your father has told me he wishes for you to keep coming to these sessions for as long as possible, so long that your anger is under-" I wasn't able to finish my statement.
"THAT FUCKASS!" "THE HELL'S HIS PROBLEM?!" "I'M FINE AS I FUCKING AM!" Various other phrases of malcontent permeate the building. Other patients and doctors should count themselves lucky for not going deaf.
After a good minute of this, silence resumes. "Finished?" I ask. "Fucking hardly!" Is his reply.
"Mr. Vantas, Karkat, if I may?" His silence affirms my question. "Why is it that you think he sent to these sessions to begin with?"
He chuckles bitterly, finally leaning back into the sofa. What a relief. His tension was getting to me. "Cause he's like everybody fucking else. Always eager to drop his shit on somebody, that somebody always me." He pauses. "I don't see why. He's as much of a fucking asshole as I am."
Admitting a problem. That's a start. I decided to keep poking at his father. "Why's that?" I press.
He suddenly becomes a chatty-Kathy. Drinking, coming home late, fast food and take out for dinner. Though he doesn't admit it, the fact he doesn't have a motherly figure to rely on seems to be an ever-present issue on his psyche.
Again he becomes silent. It seems I've run the father issue dry. Time to move on. "Would you mind telling me a bit about your friends?" His expression remains unchanged from where it has resided, but he looks off.
"Shit, mostly. Too many of them are busy with their own little issues to realize I'm flying off the fucking handle."
"What of those that aren't? You've mentioned a Gamzee, a Kanaya...?"
He shrugs nonchalantly. But I know it's more of a defense mechanism than apathy. "They're alright, I guess. Though Gamzee's usually too high off his ass to talk seriously to. And Kanaya's more of a m-" He struggles to say it. "More of one of those nitpicking, orderly persons who's always on your case for some sorta shit you've done."
I have no idea what kind of friend that'd be, that last part. As I've guessed, he seems to have an unusual and very moderate way of interpreting the definition of companionship. However, there seems to be something more to it and I haven't exactly figured it out yet.
"If I may, Karkat, the way you interact with your friends seems to be rather restrained. Why is that?"
He stiffens up. He knows exactly what it means, even though he replies with the typical "what do you mean?" response. Troublesome as it is, it appears we're getting somewhere.
"What I mean is you seem to convey an essence of bitterness, though I have no imaginable reason as to why. Your family life is decent, if not disconnected; your social life fairs quite a bit better. At some point or another you've commented on how highly all of your friends think of you, or at least most of them. Though you feign an ego, you're rather self-depreciating. For absolutely no reason, given how a leader of a group usually attracts a hefty view of self. I ask again, why is that?"
He's shifting around nervously. No doubt that whatever it is defines a majority of his existence.
"I don't wanna talk about it."
"Karkat, I do-"
"I *SAID* I don't wanna talk about it."
Throughout this, however, I see him shift his left arm, as if to hide something on his covered wrist. The idea of self-mutilation was persistent, but not prevailing. No, the boy seemed stronger willed than that. Then, what?
Ah, now I understood. The pale complexion, the sickly appearance (quite literally, given he was always stricken by a cold or the like). The purposeful detachment from family, friends, lovers and enemies. Because, of course, why would you want to hurt those you care for when you're already so close to doing so?
I stood at that, setting everything away. "You can leave now, Mr. Vantas," I said, soon exiting myself.