DA Revelations
Episode 12 - Intervention
Chapter 1: Therapy
The sounds coming from the ridiculously large-for-an-office fish tank against the side wall were somewhat distracting; the gentle sound of bubbles and the gentle hum from the filtration system. He glanced towards the fish as they gracefully floated across the grey of the water, flitting in and out of the green plants. One fish with strange bugling eyes stopped at the corner of the tank, seeming to stare out, as if it could almost see him.
I feel like I'm the one in the fish tank, Remy thought nervously as he tried to get more comfortable on the leather couch; every time he moved it made that creak that told him the leather was new and had not yet settled into the eventual distressed state it would become.
Dr. Soberman crossed one leg over the other, his notepad he set upon his knee, "I like fish – love watching them. So relaxing and calming to look at," he scratched his beard. "Do you like fish?"
Remy pondered, "On a plate with lemon and a nice salad...otherwise, I've never been a huge lover of animals."
The Psychiatrist chuckled, "never had a pet as a kid?"
"Never had a childhood as a kid," Remy remarked, all too quickly, all too coldly. He hadn't meant for it to come out so badly.
"Is that when your depression began? Your childhood?"
"No," Remy replied, "at least, I don't think so. I don't remember ever bein' sad much when I was a kid, but then...there isn't much I can remember about it."
"Your childhood would be a very good place to start," said Dr. Soberman. Remy found irony in the man's name. Soberman. Sober Man. Remy ironically wanted to be a sober man, but would Soberman be able to make that happen or would it take the Alcoholics Anonymous meetings that the Professor was suggesting he should attend?
"Like I said, I don't really remember a whole lot about it," Remy looked to the floor, he pursed his lips. He wished he'd never surrendered himself to the idea of going through therapy in the first place. "Why is it important? You think stuff that happened to me as a kid actually affects any part of my life now? 'Cause I'm telling you, it just doesn't. Everything going on now happened after I came to Bayville – nothing to do with my life before that," he said irritably, he tapped his fingers impatiently on the right armrest of the couch.
"It's important, because how you start out in life can influence who you become, regardless of when things happen."
"Fine," said Remy, he looked away, "I was born at some point in 1982 – supposedly. I don't know if it's true...I don't really have a real birth certificate to tell me otherwise – just one that was faked so there'd be no questions when it came to later in life. I don't remember my parents at all – what I do remember really vaguely is that I had a mother called Gabrielle. Somehow, I ended up orphaned, and on the streets of New Orleans...and there I lived until I made the mistake of pickpocketing the wrong person, and was taken in by him – he adopted me."
"How did you survive alone on the streets?" Soberman wrote something down from where he sat several feet away on his chair.
"I don't know – stealing, I suppose."
"How old where you when you ended up with your adoptive-father?"
"I don't know...I don't remember..." Remy frowned, "maybe seven or eight."
"Why do you have such a hard time remembering?" Dr. Soberman asked seriously.
"Because...I guess it wasn't the best time of my life. I was always different...bullied."
"You let them bully you?" asked the Psychiatrist.
"At first I did...didn't know any better, really...at school, they used to call me Diable..." he paused, "Devil..."
"Because of your eyes?"
"Among other things...my powers, they manifested when I was about eleven, and that was back when the world wasn't as educated about us mutants as it is now – not that it ever made the slightest bit of difference."
"You said you let them bully you at first?"
"I asked Jean-Luc...my father...for help when the bullying got ugly...he started to teach me how to fight...not just stick up for myself but really fight...I think I might have been eleven...it was around the time my sister left home."
"You have a sister?"
"Chantal. Jean-Luc's only daughter. She had a mind of her own – didn't wanna marry who Jean-Luc said she should marry and she left home...it's kind of complicated."
"Your life sounds complicated and I've only known you twenty minutes."
Remy sighed, "I was taught to be a thief from the time I was eleven onwards. And I mean really taught...and it was the only thing in life I actually learned well. But me and Jean-Luc, we didn't get along...he was always trying to tell me how to live my life, y'know."
"All parents do this – it doesn't mean..."
"No...this was properly dictating HOW to live my life. I met this girl and I had my first...I lost my virginity to her...and I knew that we were too young, but...I was old in the head for my age...I wasn't like the other kids who were out there at the arcade playin' shootin' games..."
"Did you love the girl?" Soberman asked; Remy thought the question was incredibly stupid – how could he know if he'd been in love as a hormone driven fourteen year old?
But he thought about this, and came up with his answer, "Bella Donna?" he asked, he scoffed, "No. I've never loved her. I've never loved anyone other than the woman I'm with now. Bella Donna was just a starting point...I liked her but not well enough to care about her all that much. I just wanted her...she was mature lookin' for her age, she had the curves the other girls my age didn't have, and I felt older than I was. It just felt right even though I knew it wasn't."
"How did Bella Donna play a part in your life after that encounter?"
"She was from this rival family and her Daddy was none too happy when they found out about that I'd sullied her. That was what he called it. Sullied. Like I'd ruined her. Like no man could ever have her after I had."
"Do you think you ruined her?"
"That's a complicated question. Maybe? Maybe not."
"What happened after her father broached the subject?"
"Her daddy and mine decided to come to a deal that when me and her were eighteen we'd get married to bring peace between the families."
"And did you?"
"No. Wasn't any way in hell I was getting married. Didn't even believe in marriage at that point. I ran away a few times, got caught and brought back, but when I was seventeen I took off for good – it's when I came to Bayville for the first time."
Remy hated having to reveal all these things to a stranger, it made him uncomfortable. The more and more he was revealing, the less and less he felt like himself and it was strangely odd that instead of feeling better about talking about any of this to someone, he only felt more bitter, more depressed.
"Seems to me you'd already lived a very troubled life before coming here...and you don't think at all these things might have affected how you are now?" Dr Soberman asked, his hand still busy scribbling in shorthand whatever Remy was telling him.
Remy frowned at the man, wondering whatever the guy was going to be able to establish from a childhood that had never mattered. "I was a happy and well adjusted kid when I came to Bayville. I'd had problems but I wasn't fucking depressed. None of that mattered, I didn't care about any of it. My life was fun, it was adventures and fighting and havin' my way with as many girls as I wanted without even caring and it was not complicated. I took care of myself, I didn't need family, or friends. I just got by...until I came here."
Dr. Soberman shifted in his seat a little, uncomfortable apparently with Remy's agitation. "So it wasn't until you came here to Bayville...that you began to connect to people?"
Remy sighed and stared deep into space, trying to see his life again through his mind, as if he could project it right there onto the wall. "I was nineteen and...lets just say I'd been around a lot since I was fourteen; I didn't exactly care about feelings and emotions. That is...'til I met this girl...and then I was hooked...then...my life was never the same again."
"You fell in love."
"So madly and deeply that it made my head spin. I didn't even think those feelings really existed up until I met her. D'ya believe in love at first sight?"
Soberman thought about this, "I believe some people can have a strong connection. I don't know about loving someone the second you see them."
"Then how else do you explain it?"
"How did it feel?"
"Like my world was spinnin', I guess. It's never stopped spinning since. Maybe that's just the alcohol speaking though," he cracked feebly.
Soberman glanced at the clock, "I'm afraid our hour is up," he said.
Remy was surprised the time had flown; he supposed the long pauses in between his having to try and remember all the things he hadn't particularly wanted to or cared about had been what had taken so long. He stood up, perhaps a little too anxiously.
"My, you are in a hurry to get out of here. Am I that shitty a psychiatrist?" Soberman chuckled.
"Everyone has their flaws," Remy remarked, he'd meant it as a joke, but realised right away it sounded a bit too cold. "I'm kidding. I don't know how to answer that...I don't know you."
"I feel like I got to know you a little," said Soberman. "But I feel like some things were missing...so I'd like you to take some time to think about what happened between your being born and coming here that you might have overlooked..."
Remy shrugged, "I'll try. I can't promise..."
"I know it isn't easy opening up to a stranger; but you did fine. And I'll see you on thursday."
He left the office feeling relieved to be out of there; it wasn't that he didn't like the doctor although it was hard for him to know what to think about him. And he had more of a feeling that wanting to start from the beginning and get every single detail about his life before coming to Bayville was more of a way to draw out the sessions more, get more money.
Rogue was sitting in her old truck on the other side of the street, even from where he was Remy could hear the radio – an old Ozzy hit that he could only half-remember the lyrics to. He approached the truck and climbed in; the duct tape holding the passengers seat together stuck to his jeans and pulled away from the seat a little.
"I've been meaning to fix that," Rogue said as she turned the radio down.
"Get a new car," Remy replied quickly, feeling cranky as he pulled his seatbelt on; it brushed against the wound and he hissed in pain, he slammed his fist against the dash, "fuck."
Rogue was silent, hands on the wheel with apparently no intentions of starting the car – she gave him a couple of moments to recover and relax, then spoke. "I guess it didn't go so well."
"It's stupid – he's askin' me questions about my childhood like it has anything to do with what's goin' on right now..."
"They like to start from the beginning," said Rogue quietly, "and Dr. Soberman...he's a great therapist...he treated me after you left..." she said softly.
He turned to look at her, she hadn't told him this before; he wondered if she hadn't mentioned because she was afraid he might have mentioned to the Doctor about who he was to her; might have affected the guys judgement somehow?
"Why didn't you tell me that?" Remy asked quietly.
"I don't know...I guess I didn't think it was important," she shrugged, "it doesn't matter. All that does matter is you went...and he will help you."
"Therapy is bullshit," Remy uttered.
"What is with you? You've been in a bad mood since yesterday night."
"I'm not in a bad mood," he lied. To him, he felt he wasn't. But he wasn't so blind that he could completely ignore the slight irritability that had been on his back all night. Your own fault, he thought to himself. Mess with drugs and there's always a bad come down...should have seen it coming.
Rogue fell silent, she just stared at the wheel.
Say something, or she's gonna know something's wrong and you're going to repeat everything all over again.
"I'm...sorry," Remy said as he tried to relax, tried to make his tone softer, "I'm just...stressed out. I don't really like the idea of therapy...and I'm annoyed with myself it's gotten to this...I should have sorted myself out long ago."
She turned to look at him, "it's not something you can help..." she reminded.
"I could have tried to help it," he admitted, knowing it was at least partly truthful.
"Do you want to go anywhere? Maybe for lunch?" she offered.
He wasn't hungry, and he felt that even if he did try to eat, he'd only manage a few bites before feeling as if he couldn't take any more. "I'm not really hungry," he answered softly. I don't really feel like doing anything, he thought dully.
"You're never hungry anymore..." Rogue started the car, her expression sullen; he could practically see the cogs turning around in her mind that she was worried.
It's not my fault I'm not hungry, chere, he thought at her, but could find nothing to say on the subject; there was nothing he could say that would make her not worry about it.
He glanced out of the side window, a poster for a new movie was up on the side of a Bus-stop, he put his hand on her arm. "How about we go to see a movie?" he offered.
She stopped had almost pulled the car away, but stopped abruptly, accidentally stalling the truck. "Really?"
"Yeah...been a while since me and you saw a movie together...did anything like that together," he added. He felt like a heel, as if he were throwing her scraps of love in pity. It shouldn't need to feel like this... he thought anxiously as she started the car up again.
"Okay," she nodded, "what you want to see?"
"A comedy," he replied. God knows, I could do with a good laugh, right now.