A/N: I SWEAR I WILL FINISH THIS I SWEAR I SWEAR.
Dr. Khaleesi isn't as odd as he'd imagined him to be. Maybe he's just seen too many movies where the shrink is really a Cool Guy with a quirky personality and something resembling ADHD, but the office is quieter than the waiting room, even, and he's hyperaware that it's a place that he's never going to see again.
He's already decided, see? He can't come back here. He's not crazy.
(He doesn't think he wants to remember it; but if he had his camera, he'd take some pictures anyways. Just in case.)
Roger would sneer at him for giving in. Roger was never fond of therapists, no matter how many April and Mimi had tried to drag him to see. He wasn't fond of having his brain picked, that was what it was; that was the sharp look he got in his eyes whenever Mark stared at him for too long, too quietly in the dark of his bedroom when they were alone and the shadows made the bruise slashing his cheekbone look not so bad.
"Tell me why you're here, Mark."
Because I'm a chickenshit.
"My mom says I'm acting depressed."
Too much of a chickenshit to say what he's thinking. What else is new?
"Do you think you're acting depressed?"
No. Yes.
"I'm fine."
"I believe you." The man smiles, lips thin and dark. The room is open and the blinds are drawn halfway, sunlight slanting across the carpet. Mark wants to kick it away from him. He doesn't deserve to have it touch him.
He doesn't want it to touch him, because it won't feel the same.
The doctor shifts, leaning forward. He's got a pad and a pen in his lap but he's not touching them. Mark wonders abstractly if this is supposed to be some big show of restraint on his part. Making a point. I see you as a human being, not a test subject.
He's not going to fool Mark. You see me as a patient.
That's even worse.
"Mark, you mother tells me that you haven't been eating lately." He has been eating. He's already eaten a package of those peanut-butter crackers today. That's more than he'd expected to be able to keep down. "Is she right, do you think?"
"I'm not starving myself. It's okay. I'm fine."
"I believe you," Khaleesi stresses, with that same worn-denim smile, that silent "but" in the spread of his thick eyebrows. "But you can understand why she'd be concerned, can't you? It can ruin your outlook on life if you're not properly nourished."
"My outlook is fine. I'm putting in my college applications next week."
He'd never been a good liar before. Now, his voice doesn't even shake, though the rest of him is. Or it should be.
Maybe this was Roger's parting gift. Maybe Roger is his guardian angel now.
You're fucking batshit, that's why you're here.
There are applications. Plenty of them. They're underneath his bed, gathering dust, where they've been for the past three months. He'd almost forgotten about them. He wishes he could forget the rest so easily.
"… Do I have to stay?" The long hand on the clock over the doctor's desk has barely moved two inches. Khaleesi shakes his head.
"Of course not. But I'd like it if you did."
"I want to go home."
No, he doesn't. He doesn't ever want to see his room again. Or his mother, or Cindy. Or anybody. Anything.
"If I let you go, will you come back next week?" He raises one thick eyebrow and Mark feels the thickening of tension in the air. A challenge.
He's so tired.
"Fine."
He just can't say no to anyone. Even now.
Freddie beats him to the waiting room, 1:34 PM the next Monday. His eyes are just as pale, just as blue. They pin him to the door.
"You actually came back."
It's alarmingly calculating. The way he looks at him… Mark thinks of Roger again and immediately falls like a scarecrow from a post to sit in the chair he'd occupied the week before, nodding tersely.
"Yeah." He clears his throat, stares down at his lap and his empty hands. He'd thought of bringing his camera, but touching it would be too much. Too soon.
Everything is too soon.
"Most people don't." He understands what he's saying, just by the way he says it – the lilt in his voice, the way he cocks his head and smiles like a grimace. Most people as bad as you. Because the only reason he'd come back, really, was because if he hadn't he might not be sitting here across from the boy in white whose name he only knows by chance.
"You did, too," he points out, but he's too tired to be defensive. Just curious. He imagines his eyes are lenses, flexing and narrowing to the minute quirk of Freddie's lips. His fingers are twitching restlessly, his arm bent at a strange angle to rest his hand palm-up on the seat beside him. Barely grazing.
Mark would ask, but instead he preserves, watching with a detachment he's becoming eerily familiar with.
"I come every week," Freddie shrugs, his fingers flexing around an invisible hand. Is that what he's doing? "I have to. Gotta make sure my meds are adjusted, you know, that kind of shit."
Mark opens his mouth. You, too? The bottle in his backpack is rattling in the back of his mind. Fluoxetine Hydrochloride.
It's just Prozac in disguise. Who is he kidding?
Freddie keeps talking, though, leaning back against the wall. "I wouldn't bother, but Florence nags if I don't come. And Tolya comes with me, so it's not so bad."
He wants to ask. He wants desperately to ask. Somewhere in his chest an uncomfortable knot begins to form at the idea that there are people in the world who still have friends to count on, people they love, people they cherish, would do anything to protect.
Roger grins drunkenly from behind the glass door in his mind, sticking his tongue out, and winks before turning to disappear into the night.
"I didn't think you'd come back, or I would have brought my board," Freddie is lamenting. He never seems to stop talking. Mark wonders if he's just one of those people who always has something to say, but it seems more likely that he's just scattered.
He wants to ask what's wrong with you? As though it will make him feel better to know. As if he's hoping to God there's just one other person in the world who can understand.
"Tolya says you're not listening." He's staring at him again, eyes pale and accusing. For the first time in months Mark feels guilt that doesn't crush his soul on impact, like dead nerve endings awakening, clumsy and stumbling like the words from his mouth.
"I'm s-sorry." He hasn't stuttered like this in years. Collins would be ruffling his hair now, guffawing, pulling him into a noogie. "I was just –"
The door opens and Freddie is standing before Mark can even try to finish his sentence, turning to look down his nose at him. It's ridiculous and a little condescending. "Just remember to come back next week."
It was a demand, not a request. Mark feels himself bristle, trembling submissively.
He still can't say no.