I don't own Stardew Valley. Just my plot and OCs. (Yes there's another one now)

Enjoy!

When Sebastian woke up in the early afternoon, he had a text from Mariah that he was not ready to look at. Instead, he made a phone call he had put off for a long time.

"Hello?" the voice on the other end said.

"Hello doctor," he said, frowning to himself.

"Sebastian," the voice was surprised, "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"I'm not going to say I'm ready, but I know I need to do something."

"Has something happened?" the doctor asked.

"You could say that," Sebastian said clearing his throat, "There's uh, someone new in my life. She's given me some motivation I guess."

"I'm happy to set you up with an appointment," the doctor offered.

Sebastian was silent for a moment, before taking a deep breath, "Okay."

He set up an appointment the following day, which he texted Sam about, still pretending he couldn't see the text from Mariah. Next was Robin. He took a deep breath before heading up the stairs.

"There's my first born!" Robin smiled at him.

A quick look around confirmed for him that Demetrius and Maru weren't around.

"Mom," Sebastian said, walking up to her counter, "I need you to not react to what I'm about to tell you please."

Robin nodded her head, this was not an unusual request from Sebastian. He would come to her once in a great while with something that was important to him to share with her, but her emotional response would overwhelm him and he would shut down and not want to talk more. He also usually wanted to keep what he was saying between the two of them so they worked out this system of communication.

"I set up an appointment with Doctor Tan for tomorrow," Sebastian said.

Robin's face briefly betrayed her mixture of excitement and concern, but all she said was, "Okay."

"If it's still raining, can I borrow the truck if you don't have a job?"

"Of course," Robin said, "I'm much rather you do that than drive all the way out there on your bike"

"Thanks," Sebastian said, turning back around.

"Eggplant parm for dinner," She called after him.

"I'll be there," he called back, heading down the stairs again. Sometimes he hated how much his mother loved him.

He took a look at his phone, Sam had texted back.

"That's great. LMK if you want to talk after"

He sat down at his desk, took a deep breath, and opened Mariah's text.

"Hope you got good sleep"

Not a scary text. He didn't respond to Sam or Mariah, instead he set an alarm on his phone just in case, so he wouldn't miss dinner and piss his mom off. He pulled on his head phones and logged into his computer. It was time for him to get into the work that he never did yesterday.

The next day was not raining so Sebastian was able to take his bike out for the ride. Dr. Tan's office was in the outskirts of Zuzu City, and the ride was a long one. He was glad he's have his bike for the trip home to help him blow of some steam.

He had barely sat down in the waiting room when Dr. Tan called him into her office. He took a seat in the big green chair by the window and she sat across from him in a red leather office chair. She crossed one leg over the other when she sat, placing a pad of paper and a pen in her lap. He knew she rarely used them, but the site still made him uneasy. She had even shown him what she's written after one session, which was minimal and harmless, but it didn't help his anxiety.

"So Sebastian," she said, "I was glad to hear from you. How've you been doing?"

"Um," Sebastian said, deeply regretting this choice, "Okay I guess. My panic attacks are really infrequent, but I had a really awful one recently. It didn't totally lay me out though, I was able to calm down and still go to band practice later that day."

"Well that's fantastic progress," Doctor Tan agreed, "And I'm so happy to hear it, but I don't think you came all the way out here just to tell me about how much better you're managing your panic attacks."

"I suppose not," Sebastian said.

"Well what did bring you in today? You mentioned a girl on the phone?"

"So it's complicated," he began, "Or at least I feel like it is. Maybe it isn't all that complicated really and I'm just over reacting."

"Sebastian," Dr. Tan cut him off, "Of course it's complicated. Life is always complicated. If life were simple I wouldn't have a job. Your feelings are valid and true to you."

"Okay, okay," He agreed, "So it's complicated. So the girl- Mariah- she just moved into town at the beginning of the year. She inherited the old farm from her grandfather. Anyway I don't know where to start. The important highlights are that I have a crush on her, well really it's more than a crush at this point, but I don't know how to describe it. We're friends right? And Sam had a crush on her. He asked her out, and she very nicely turned him down. We all still hang out and Sam swears its fine."

"That must have been hard for you," Dr. Tan suggested, "I'm guessing Sam doesn't know how you feel about her?"

"Yes to both. I tried so hard to convince myself that I wanted them both to be happy but I couldn't help but feel excited when she turned him down," Sebastian sighed, "I don't know if I'm ready to tell Sam yet or not. I don't want to make him feel bad if he does still have a crush on her even after she turned him down, and I also don't want him trying to convince me to ask her out myself."

"Okay," she agreed, "So no telling Sam right now. Was your panic attack related to this?"

"Kind of," Sebastian shrugged.

"Can you tell me more about it?"

"Well, I, uh, I was thinking about Mariah, romantically. I saw some of the scars, and just sort of got flooded. It really hit me hard and fast. I got so wrapped up thinking about my past, and thinking about how fu- " he stuttered, editing his language, "Broken I am, and how no one would ever want me and if Mariah saw them she'd reject me too. I freaked out in the shower, the water was freezing by the time I was done, I was shivering so bad."

"That must have been very overwhelming for you," Dr. Tan said, "What happened next."

"I texted Sam. I worked on warming up and focused on real positive things in my life. I actually bounced back pretty quickly, especially considering how bad it was."

"Is Sam the only one who knows about it?"

Sebastian nodded his head.

"Are you up for challenging some of those negative thoughts with me now?"

"Umm…."

"You're the one in control here," she reminded him, "You can say no. I'll also remind you that it's okay for you to swear in front of me."

Sebastian turned pink, "No then. Not right now anyway. I uh, there's more I need help with."

"Go right ahead"

"So the other night- not last night, but the night before- Mariah and I were hanging out. We watched a movie at my house, it got late and she asked to crash instead of going home. She's so stubborn and basically insisted that we shared my bed. I agreed to it, and she was pretty good about trying to give me some space, but there was just a lot of physical contact. It was really overwhelming, but I also enjoyed it if that makes any sense?" Dr. Tan nodded, and so he continued, "I could barely sleep, not that I sleep great anyway, but I think this is what made me call in the first place. I wanted so desperately to just enjoy it, but I couldn't because of how stuck in my own head I was. I hate it. I hate that I couldn't just cuddle with a beautiful woman that I'm into because I was so preoccupied with all the things that could possibly go wrong."

"Well," Dr. Tan began.

"And," he cut her off, "That was after we had smoked pot."

"Hmm," Dr. Tan continued, "So I'm just going to summarize this and fill in the gaps with my own assumptions, so please connect me if I'm getting any information incorrect. Mariah moves in, I'm guessing you started socializing with her because your friends were socializing with her," Sebastian confirmed with a nod.

"You develop a crush on her as you're getting to know her as a friend. I'm going to pause for a moment and point out to you how monumental this is in itself. Sebastian, you describe yourself as a loner. You have two very good friends, both of whom you've known for more than half your life. You actively avoid interacting with others because it spikes your anxiety, you don't do well with change, and you tend to be stand-offish to new people because of your anxiety and fear of rejection related to your past. Unless things have changed, you barely interact with your family members. You actively sought out a profession that not only are you skilled at, but it requires minimal interactions with others and when those interactions occur, it's via email. It is absolutely a huge deal that you've gotten so close to this new person in such a short period of time. This is what we call major progress."

Sebastian blushed, "I guess I hadn't thought about that."

"So back to this timeline we're developing. You've got this crush. Sam gets a crush on the same person, and ultimately gets rejected. I'm going to assume that at some point in your excitement about the fact that he did get that rejection, you had some thoughts about the fact that if she rejected Sam, she'd likely reject you as well- yes?"

Another confirmation nod.

"So now you're hanging out with your new friend, whom you have feelings for, alone for the first time?"

"Uh no, actually," Sebastian said, "We've spent time alone a few times."

"Oh, okay. So not the first time, but perhaps in a more intimate way?"

"Well sharing a bed is pretty fucking intimate."

"Oh I'm not there yet. I'm talking about the actual socialization piece. I got the sense that there was something a little more to we watched a movie. You don't need to tell me any details of course, that's just the impression I got."

"Oh," Sebastian said with some surprise, "Well yes. It was different."

"Okay, so you spend this more intimate time together, she asks to stay over, you agree, she insists that you two share the bed. You are both excited and intimidated by this. Ultimately anxiety wins and you struggle to sleep, getting consumed by your negative thoughts."

"That is the short version of it yes."

"So a couple of other things. It doesn't matter how stubborn a person is, no always means no. You always have a choice in any given situation, and I'm sorry that you felt pressured to say yes to a situation that you were uncomfortable with. If she truly values you as a friend she will respect that no, and if she doesn't respect that no, that's a whole other problem. Okay?"

Sebastian nodded.

"The other piece here, is that I'm willing to bet that a part of you deep down inside may feel like you're betraying Sam, your best friend, by spending this time with a girl that he too is interested it, or was very recently interested in. So in addition to all of your other anxiety, that's just throwing fuel on the fire."

"Huh"

"Sebastian the mere fact that you got any sleep, and didn't have another panic attack while sharing your bed with Mariah is simply incredible. I really think you need to give yourself more credit than you are. There's a lot of variables stacked against you with your mental health in this situation that in the past you would not have handled anywhere near this well."

Sebastian blushed, "It doesn't feel that great, but thank you."

"So now that we've covered those bases, tell me what you're hoping to get out of meeting with me today. What do you want to be different?"

"I want to get to a point that my anxiety isn't going to win in those situations. I don't even so much care about the panic attack, and as nice as it would be to not be anxious at all, that's not my goal. I'm can deal with most of it, but it's just not fair to me that I can't just relax and have fun."

"With Mariah," Dr. Tan filled in.

"Well yeah," Sebastian agreed, "She's definitely my biggest motivator right now, but also just like in general."

"So I'm pretty sure you're going to know what I'm about to tell you, but this is where we're at. You need to practice those mindfulness skills. When you catch those thoughts, do a mindfulness exercise. If the thoughts continue, do another one. And the thing you don't want to hear- you need to start challenging those negative thoughts. They are not going to go away until you do. Right now they are controlling you, and you need to challenge them to regain some of that control."

Sebastian groaned.

"Sebastian you will always be able to come up with plenty of excuses not to do something that you don't want to do, but putting it off forever is not going to solve the problem as you well know," Dr. Tan gave him a knowing look. "I am happy to practice with you now with your remaining time if you'd like, but we don't have to. You know the skills and are perfectly capable of doing it on your own, but you need to make yourself do it. I promise it will get easier with time."

"I'll pass," Sebastian said, not looking at Dr. Tan.

"Well then what would you like to talk about?"

"I don't know," Sebastian shrugged.

"Do you want to tell me more about Mariah? She must be special if she's gotten both you and Sam interested in her. I'm also assuming that since Sam doesn't know about how you feel, no one does. It might be a good thing to have someone to talk to about it," Dr. Tan suggested.

"Um what about Sam? What do I do about Sam?"

"Well that's up to you really. At some point you'll have to have a conversation about him with your feelings, for multiple reasons. When, how, and what amount of detail is up to you. I wouldn't do it on a day of significance, that would be inappropriate, but you should certainly do it if you ever feel like anything further is going to happen between you and Mariah. Realistically for your mental health you might want to do it sooner rather than later. Take some of that stress off your shoulders."

Sebastian sighed, "Well that wasn't very helpful."

Dr. Tan chuckled, but it was not in a mean way, "Sebastian we've been over this, you know I'm not here to tell you what to do. I am here to help provide perspective and support."

"Can't you provide perspective and support me by telling me what to say? Just this once."

Dr. Tan smirked, "How about we go over some options together?"

"How about 'Sam I was really excited when Mariah turned you down because I've had feelings for her basically since she moved in' does that sound good?"

"That's one way to do it."

Sebastian groaned, "Seriously? You're just going to let me make a fool of myself like that?"

"I didn't say it was the best way, I just said it was one way," Dr. Tan shrugged, "Besides we both knew that was bullshit and not an actual option. This is your time, if this is how you want to spend it, that's up to you."

Sebastian rolled his eyes, "Okay, okay, what about, 'Sam, I've been keeping this in for a long time, and I want to talk to you about it because you're my best friend.'"

"That's a very solid start," Dr. Tan said, "Go on, what comes next?"

"'I've had feelings for Mariah for a long time now. I didn't say anything before because I know you had a crush on her too, and she just wanted to be friends. I didn't want to make you feel weird or feel like I was betraying you or something.'…Was that okay?"

"How did it feel to you?" Dr. Tan asked.

"Awkward. But all of this feels awkward and I hate it."

"Sebastian, you've got a great head on your shoulders, and a great friend in Sam. What you just came up with sounded very genuine and true to who you are, which honestly is what's most important. Even if that's not exactly what you say to him, I think you've got a good foundation and you'll have a good conversation with Sam."

"Well it'll have to go better than when I snapped at Abby," Sebastian grumbled.

"You snapped at Abby?" Dr. Tan raised her eyebrow.

"Uh yeah. She was bothering me while I was working again and I just sort of lost it. I, uh, had actually talked to Mariah about it earlier in the day, so it was kind of on my mind," he grimaced, looking down.

"And your conversation with Mariah had been positive?"

"Yeah," Sebastian said, "She listened to me, and really heard what I was saying. And then gave me space to get back to work."

"So you had this positive interaction with Mariah, and then something happened with Abby?"

"Just the usual stuff. Talking bullshit I don't care about at me while I'm trying to work. I guess it had just built up and I snapped. I mean it wasn't terrible, but we both ended up apologizing to each other later," Sebastian explained, "It did feel good to let it out though."

"I bet it did," Dr. Tan agreed, "I know that expressing yourself isn't usually your forte, but you see how keeping things bottled up didn't achieve the best outcome."

"Yeah, I know," he sighed, "It's just hard."

"But you were able to talk about it with Mariah?"

Sebastian nodded, "It's both easier and harder to talk to her about things. She listens. She gets me. And she doesn't push. It's just so damn intimidating to be vulnerable like that. We haven't talked about it, but I can see that she's got her own anxiety. It's just different than mine I think. Not as extreme that's for sure."

"And what makes you think that?"

"Well she apologizes a lot, like she's worried that she's offending people. And she gets into rambling a lot when it happens. Sometimes I feel like she wants to say something but doesn't know how and holds back, which is funny because she's so much more comfortable in her skin than I am in mine. I admire how bold she is. She's usually so sure of herself too, but then she shared with me about how she's been overwhelmed and I had no idea because she's so together," Sebastian said.

"Sebastian, do you realize that you've been smiling while talking about Mariah?"

"Oh," Sebastian blushed, "I guess I have"

"So it does sound like she probably is managing some of her own anxiety, but more importantly you both seem to have a genuine connect with each other. So let me ask you this. You mentioned she's apologetic. Did she apologize after the bed incident?"

"Well yeah. In the morning. And she apologized when she kissed my cheek when I walked her home from the Saloon too."

"She kissed your cheek?" Dr. Tan was surprised.

"Oh yeah. She'd had too much to drink at the Saloon and asked me to walk her home, and she kissed my cheek when we were saying goodbye. She was super embarrassed and apologized right away."

"Sebastian, have you ever considered that maybe Mariah has feelings for you too? I mean I actually have no idea, but the possibility is there."

"I have but not. I can't. She's friendly with everyone. Literally everyone. She's friends with the whole town, at least to some extent."

"That may be true, but that doesn't make your relationship any less important."

Sebastian nodded his head, looking into his lap.

"So where do we go from here?" Dr. Tan asked.

"I think I want to tell her about my dad," he whispered, "Not right now, but I need her to know."

"That's a really big deal Sebastian," Dr. Tan pointed out, "Having that level of vulnerability with another person is quite significant. I'm not going to sugar coat it, it will not be easy for you."

"I know," He nodded, tones remaining low, "Its important though. I'm not ready yet, but I know it needs to happen."

"I wholly respect your choice. I just want you to be sure that you have the supports you need in place so that as you're dealing with all of the complicated emotions that come with that you've got a safety net in place so you're not trying to dig yourself out of a hole alone again."

Sebastian wiped away a tear, gazing down. He nodded his head.

"Is there anything you need or want from me to make this easier for you?" Dr. Tan offered.

"I think I need help getting ready. I don't know if I can do it alone."

"Absolutely, I am happy to do whatever feels best for you. We can practice going over the narrative together, working through some of the negative thoughts that you've been avoiding, bulking up those coping skills, or simply just holding space to let the emotions out."

"Thanks," Sebastian mumbled.

"And don't forget about your other supports too. I know we talked a lot about Sam today, but you know your mom always has your back, and your relationship with Abby is a bit more complicated, but she's a good resource for you too."

"Yeah," he grumbled.

"So, we don't have much time left and I think it would be best if we got you into a little better of a headspace. You've done a lot of heavy lifting and intense processing today. What can we do to slough off some of that heaviness?"

"Got anything I can break?"

"As a matter of fact, I do," Dr. Tan said, standing up.

Sebastian raised any eyebrow, watching Dr. Tan go into a closet that despite the numerous times he'd been in this office he never noticed was there. She pulled a wooden structure that was cracked, scratched, and battered. He had no clue what it once was, but now it was just a mess. He realized there was a tarp underneath it, as Dr. Tan pulled out a plastic tote and placed it on the floor next to it.

"Alright so he's the rules," Dr. Tan said, opening the tote, "You have to wear gloves and goggles. If at any point any type of body injury occurs, you're done right then. When you're done you need to clean the wood fragments off the floor.

"You serious right now?"

"Completely. Have at it. You can use anything in the box that you'd like. I mean you can use your hands or legs as well, but that is far more likely to result in injury. Trust me."

She put on a pair of goggles herself and sat down in her chair. Sebastian stood up, and took a look in the box. He put on the gloves and goggles that were at the top, and looked through the rest of the contents of the container.

"Isn't this like a massive safety risk on your part doc?"

"I certainly don't offer this to all of my clients. It is a conscious choice in situations in which I deem to be safe. If things go poorly, well I have to deal with the consequences of my choices just like everyone else. Emotions have to be felt, and emotions come with their own energy. Sometimes you just need to let that energy out."

Sebastian looked into the box again. He pulled out a small iron frying pan and looked at it curiously, and instead swapped it out for an aluminum bat. It was child sized, but would work. He gripped it firmly, holding it over his head, and swung down, hard onto the wood. There was an audible crack and some of the looser splintered bits of wood fell off around the edges. He kept swinging at the wood, from all different angles, just letting out all of pent up frustrations inside him, feeling satisfied each time more of the wood hit the floor. With one good blow, there was a loud crack and the wood split, separating into two distinct pieces, though it remained connected at the bottom. He dropped the bat, looking at his work, realizing that he was breathing pretty heavy.

"Better?" Dr. Tan asked, suddenly bringing Sebastian an awareness of his surroundings. He'd completed zoned out and forgotten she was even there.

"Yeah," he nodded, "Way better."

"Good. Because you've got just enough time to clean up."

Sebastian nodded his head, picking up the bat and placing it back into the bin. Dr. Tan pulled a metal bucket out from under her desk, and passed it to him.

"For the scraps," she said, "Waste not want not."

Sebastian took it from her and set it on the floor next to him and began placing biggest bits of wood into it first.

"So would you like to set up another appointment?"

"Um," Sebastian paused. He had intended for this to be a one time thing, but would it be so bad to come again?, "I don't actually know. Maybe? Yes? I'm not sure."

"Well so you have two choices, we can set up an appointment and if you decide you don't want to come you can call me to cancel, or we don't and you can just call me again when you want to schedule something. My personal recommendation is that we do set up another appointment, but it's entirely up to you."

"Okay," Sebastian agreed, "But I don't want it like next week or something."

"Of course. Why don't we set up an appointment in the fall, and then we can move it if we need to, or you know you're always welcome to call me if you just need a brief check-in"

"That works," Sebastian nodded and continued picking up the scraps, "How come we've never done this before?"

"You never asked," she replied as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.