Angus wasn't ready. He wasn't ready to let his past back into the spotlight. He didn't want to think about it, talk about it, especially with someone he'd never met before. It had to happen, though. It was for Liam, Gregg, Bea, Mae, everyone in his life who actually cared about him.

It was a Saturday just before noon, and Angus was sat in a small waiting room with Gregg. They were both here for counseling. Taking the list Michael had given him, Angus found two people who worked in the same building and managed to schedule matching times with them.

The clock struck 12, and soon after, a person walked out of the hallway leading to the offices, followed by another person a few moments after. After that, another person came out and walked over to Gregg and Angus. He was a tall, semi-muscular dog with brown fur and grey suit with stripes.

"Are you two Greggory and Angus?"

"Yes, that's us. I'm Angus.", replied Angus, a knot in his stomach.

"Alright. You'll be with me. I'm Dr. Riese. Greggory here will be with Dr. Cassus a few rooms down the hall from me. He should be waiting outside his office."

"Got it. Come on, bug. Let's go.", said Angus, standing up.

"Heh. 'Bug'. That's a new one."

Angus' face turned a brighter red than it was naturally, "Oh, that's my, um, nickname for him."

"I gathered that. Does he have one for you?"

Gregg firmly planted an arm on Angus' shoulder, "I call him cap'n."

"Hm. Are these in-jokes or something? Normally, couples just take the obvious route. Cutie, honey, etc.", asked Dr. Riese.

"We do that, too.", said Gregg.

"No, they're not really based on any sort of joke or anything. They just kinda happened.", said Angus.

"Okay."

They had reached Riese's office. There was someone else down the hall waving at them, probably Dr. Cassus.

"Alright. Angus, you come in with me. Greggory, Cassus is waiting for you right down there. He is currently waving at you."

Angus went into Dr. Riese's office.

"Bye, Gregg. I love you."

"Love you, too.", replied Gregg, heading off down the hall.

Once Gregg was gone, Dr. Riese closed the door to the office and sat in his computer chair.

"You can sit wherever you'd like.", said Dr. Riese.

In the room were both a chair and a couch. Angus decided to take the couch.

"Good. Now that we're settled in, are you ready to get started?", asked Riese.

"Sure.", replied Angus.

"Okay. You said that Michael recommended you to me, yes?"

"Um, yeah. Do you know him?", asked Angus.

"We're actually friends. We met when he first started work as an adoption agent. He wanted to get to know child psychologists."

"You work with children?"

"Not exclusively, but yes, I do. Now, when I heard it was him who recommended you, I was curious, especially since you aren't a child. What's your relation to him?"

"He's our adoption agent.", answered Angus.

"Really? That is interesting. Is he still working with you?"

"Yeah, actually. I'm surprised he still thinks I'm capable."

"If I may be so bold, what exactly prompted his recommendation of seeing a mental health counselor? If this is too much to start with, it's fine."

"Well, in the middle of matching us with a child, I… had some kind of flashback."

"Flashback? Like, PTSD?", asked Dr. Riese.

"Maybe… Probably…"

"May I ask what it was that caused it and what exactly happened during it?"

"Well, he was trying to get us to adopt this specific child, Liam."

"Wait, it's you two? You're the people he found?", asked Riese in slight disbelief.

"Has he told you about us or something?"

"He said he might have found 'the ones'. He never mentioned your names or anything. Wow. You're here, and he's still thinking about giving him to you?"

"Yeah. It's probably not gonna happen.", said Angus ashamedly.

"I don't know. If he's sticking it out for you after something like this, he must like you a lot."

"He said it was because Liam needed someone who could understand him."

"And you can? So, does that mean…"

"Yeah, I was abused as a child.", answered Angus for him.

"And that's what caused it? The flashback?"

"Mhm."

"Has this happened before?"

"Never. This has never happened before now. Why would that happen? Why would I not see anything for so long?", asked Angus.

"Well, this could be a case of delayed-onset PTSD. How long has it been since you were abused?"

"We'll be coming up on a decade in a year or two."

"Wow. That's a long time. Now, I know this is going really fast, but do you think you could tell me about the nature of your abuse?"

Angus found it hard to get an answer out. It had been so long since he ever talked about his childhood in great detail. Despite this, he swallowed his anxiety and began to speak.

"Ever since I was little, my dad would beat me for any little thing I did wrong. If I knocked a drink over, he would hit me. If it ever sounded like I was talking back to him, he would get out a belt or just punch and kick me. If it was ever anything serious, they'd have to keep me home from school while I healed. They couldn't let it get out that they were doing this to me."

Riese nodded and wrote some notes down, "What about your mother? What was she like."

Angus felt shivers crawling up and down his spine, "She was worse. When my dad beat me, it would only last for maybe 5 minutes, more if it was really bad, but with my mom, it was so much worse. She… She would lock me in our pantry if I ever did anything to wrong her. Whenever I was in there, it would be for hours, even days at a time. I would always be starving. Sometimes, I felt like I was actually going to die in there."

"Did this abuse ever cause any long-term medical problems?"

"I'm not sure. It may have made my asthma worse, but that's all I can think of. I have a few scars, too, but those don't really matter. They don't bother me."

"Well, I'm sorry you had to go through that. How long did you live with your parents?"

"I left as soon as I finished high school. I moved into an apartment with Gregg, and we lived there until we moved here."

"You haven't always lived here?"

"I used to live in this place called Possum Springs.", said Angus.

Dr. Riese's face lit up at the name, "Possum Springs? I remember hearing about that town. Didn't it used to be one of the most successful mining towns in the country?"

"From what I've heard, yeah. It was never like that for me, though. I had to live in it while it became one of the biggest shitholes you could ever imagine. The only people still living there are people too poor to move, which is a lot of people, but not enough to keep a town alive."

"Wow. It really did fall from grace, huh?"

"Mhm.", replied Angus.

"Well, it would seem a lot of things weren't great for you in your childhood."

"That's an understatement."

"Yes, but that's not the point. The point is that these things are out in the open now. We can talk about them. We can figure out if what you're going through really is delayed-onset PTSD or not. This is a good thing. Most people don't come out with this much information on the first day."

"I need to. I need this shit out of my life, whatever it is."

"That is my job. I'm here to help you through whatever's bothering you and to make sure it negatively impacts your life as little as possible."

Angus sighed, "I wonder how Gregg's doing?"

"I'm sure he's fine. He's in good hands."

Gregg was currently taking things much slower than Angus. He had only just finished introductions with Dr. Cassus.

"Well, it's good to meet you, Gregg.", said Dr. Cassus.

"Uh, same here.", replied Gregg.

"Alright, now that we've gotten to know each other a bit, I guess it's time to start doing what you actually came here for."

"Right…", said Gregg anxiously.

"So, what would you like to talk about. What's the reason you came here?", asked Dr. Cassus.

"Um, well, there are a few things, I guess. I need to ask you something, though."

"Okay. What is it?"

"You're not allowed to tell anyone else about what I tell you, right?"

"Ah, confidentiality. Under most circumstances, no, I am not allowed to tell anyone about what you tell me here. The only exceptions would be if you were a threat to someone else, or if I were forced to testify against you in court. Those are the only real ways I can break confidentiality, outside of other extremely rare circumstances.", explained Dr. Cassus.

"Testify? He could testify against me?"

"No, that's ridiculous. Those people have been missing for, like, 7 years. There isn't going to be a court case. No one made it out of that cave."

"Does that mean he could tell the police, though? What if they started an investigation?"

"What am I supposed to say?"

Gregg's breathing became more rapid, and he began to sweat anxiously. His eye's tried desperately to avoid Dr. Cassus'.

"Gregg? Mr. Delaney, can you hear me?", asked Dr. Cassus.

Gregg's eyes snapped to his, forced there by the call of his name.

"Are you okay?"

"No. No, I'm not."

"Are you afraid to tell me something?"

"N-no. It's nothing. I wasn't gonna say anything.", said Gregg frantically.

Dr. Cassus knew he was lying. He was worried now. What was he trying to hide? He had to make a compromise.

"Okay. How about this. I promise that no matter what, I won't tell anyone as long as you aren't planning to hurt anyone. Is that fair?" All in all, this was a smart question to ask. If the person he was talking to still refused to tell him, he knew that someone was probably in danger, and hiding most other things wouldn't be too hard.

"Really?", asked Gregg.

"Yes." This was good. This probably meant no one was in danger at least.

"…Fine. I'll tell you."

"Good. So, what is it?"

"Well… I used to live in this small town called Possum Springs. Around 7 years ago or so, only a few months before we moved here, me and my friends got wrapped up in some crazy shit. We… discovered this cult in a cave outside of our town."

"A cult?", questioned Dr. Cassus.

"Yeah. They, like, murdered people. They had this hole they would sacrifice people into."

Dr. Cassus was astounded. He never expected this.

"Were they ever caught?"

"No. They had police officers in the cult, so we couldn't tell the police about it."

"How did they get away with killing people? Didn't people notice?", asked Dr. Cassus.

"They only killed people they saw as worthless. Missing person posters would go up, but not enough people cared for there to be a massive uproar. They also didn't do it too often. They only took someone every month or so."

"Are they still there?"

This was the part Gregg was afraid of.

"No. After we found them in the cave, they actually let us go. We couldn't do anything about them, and most of us were good workers, so they didn't want to lose us. One of them, though, was mad at me for shooting him in the arm with my crossbow, so he tried to drag my friend, Mae back down after we got off of the elevator in the cave. We managed to pull her out, but the elevator collapsed, and there was a cave in. We all managed to escape, but the cult didn't. We… even had our friend blow up the exit we found to make sure they all died. There were dozens of missing person's posters going up over the next few days. None of them ever came up with anything."

The room was quiet for a moment. Dr. Cassus was still taking in what Gregg had just told him. It was more than he'd ever expected.

"I've never heard anything like that before. I'm not sure what to say."

"You won't tell anyone, right? You can't. I can't be the one who let it out and ruined all of my friends' lives!"

"Don't worry. I won't tell anyone. As much as I hate it, that was probably the best outcome. How many people did they kill?", asked Dr. Cassus.

"They said dozens."

"They would've killed dozens more, too if you hadn't done what you did. It must be hard not being able to talk about it with anyone other than your friends."

"We don't even talk about it that much. Whenever it comes up, we usually just try to gloss over it.", said Gregg.

"Oh. It must be even harder, then."

"Not really. I understand if they don't want to talk about it. There's something else, though."

"Hm?"

"There's something else they won't talk about. We had a friend, Casey Hartley. He was a great guy. Before I found Angus, my husband that you saw earlier, it was just me, him, and my other friend, Mae. We had so much fun in high school. He had dreams. He wanted to leave that shit town… He never got to leave, though. Almost 2 years after high school ended, Casey went missing, and… you know where I'm going with this." Gregg wiped away tears that started to form.

"That's… really unfortunate."

"No one else gets it! No one else gets how I feel. The only who might is Mae, but I can't talk about it with her because she already deals with enough shit on a daily basis as it is."

"What about your husband?", asked Dr. Cassus.

"He was never as close to him as I was. Besides, I shouldn't be bringing it up around him anyway. He doesn't need anything else on his mind right now."

"If you don't talk about it with anyone, how do you deal with it? How do you handle grief?"

"I don't know. I feel stuck. I just want to accept that he's gone, but my life keeps getting better, and it keeps making me feel like shit because he never got to have what I have, even though he deserved it more than me."

Dr. Cassus raised an eyebrow at Gregg, "Why do you think he deserved it more than you?"

"Because he actually tried! I only got here because Angus got me to get off of my lazy ass and do something! Casey was at least doing something to be able to leave, even if it wasn't really that great."

"What was he doing exactly?"

Gregg paused. He didn't want to tell him what Casey was doing before he died. He knew he would immediately think less of him for it. Lying had already failed, though, so he decided to just come clean.

"…He made and sold drugs with his cousin. It's the reason the cult used for killing him."

"And you think that was a good thing?", questioned Dr. Cassus.

"Of course, I don't!", yelled Gregg, "I know it's illegal, but it was all he could think to do! Do you know how hard it was to get an actual job in that goddamn town?! Everyone looks down on him because of it, but he didn't have a choice! It was either that or sit around wasting his life away like I almost did!"

"You're right. I don't know what it was like trying to find a job in Possum Springs. It doesn't seem like it was easy. I can't agree with dealing drugs, but I can see where he may have been coming from, especially if it was already in his family. It certainly didn't mean he deserved to die."

"I just don't get why it had to be him. It should have been me. Even if Angus would have been sad, he could've found someone else easily. He's too nice and smart for it not to happen."

"Gregg, that's not a healthy way to be thinking. You can't tell yourself that other people deserve more than you. There's no point. It just hurts you more.", said Dr. Cassus.

"I know, but I can't stop thinking about it. It's why I agreed to come here in the first place. I want to just get rid of all of these bad feelings, but I don't know how."

"Well, it's good that you can see it as a problem. That's always the first step. I'll make sure that by the time you stop seeing me, you'll be able to move on from all of this."

It took a moment, but Gregg smiled.

"Thanks, doc."