Flaws (Part 1)
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Two days after their first resonance session with their instructors, William and Odette stepped inside Dr. Stein's office for their first private session. Odette was not entirely without her qualms about a "private session" with Dr. Stein and William would not be being honest with himself if he claimed he wasn't concerned too. But Soul and Marie were there. Surely it couldn't be all that bad.
The doctor lighted a small candle on a stand and set it in the floor between two cushions. "Go ahead and sit down."
Odette didn't question him but carefully took her seat on one side of the candle and William on the other. Marie smiled at them sweetly. William even tried a lopsided smile back at her.
"Okay. We're going to start off pretty simple." Dr. Stein plopped down in his rolling chair near Marie and comfortably propped his ankle over his knee. "I want you both to tell each other what their flaws are."
William looked at him. "You're serious?"
"Oh yeah," Soul answered for the teacher, "As a heart attack. Go on. You start, do a back and forth, whatever you want," the Death Scythe chuckled, leaning back in another chair with his hands behind his head and apparently amused to be the spectator this time.
He turned back to his partner with a sigh.
"It's okay. Go ahead." Odette settled further into her cushion with an interested grin. Her pale fingers laced in front of her.
William looked around the room, snarling a little at the things he found floating in jars. What a wonderful location for a partner therapy session. He brushed his fingers through his hair. "You, uh… you have a tendency to be stubborn… nit-picky. Not anal, just… sometimes annoyingly particular. Your… need to know everything is a little aggravating. You can't just go with the flow. And I know you're that way because you like to feel in control of things. But you don't have to know everything to be in control. Sometimes you overkill on it. I know you mean well." He shrugged.
Odette nodded thoughtfully, looking down for a moment as she considered everything he said.
"And when you get mad you look like a pig. Because your nose does this thing," he pulled the tip of his nose up with his finger. "I mean, it does that anyway, but it really does it when you're mad because you wrinkle it up like this and stuff." William kept making his pig face.
Odette started to laugh and blush furiously. "I can't help that!"
"I know. That's not a flaw; I actually like that. I just wanted to say that." He shrugged again.
Marie giggled and covered her mouth. Odette tossed her hair. "I guess I should be thankful for that then." She cleared her throat and looked in his eyes. "You are also stubborn—in different ways in which I am stubborn. Equally irritating though I imagine."
William pursed his lips and nodded in agreement. Dr. Stein huffed into his cigarette.
Odette's smile faded and her eyes turned more serious. "You rely on alcohol more than you rely on me. And that bothers me."
His eyes turned serious too.
"I don't like how… when you are upset, talking to me comes second to getting drunk or… other nocturnal escapades."
William blinked. "… I quit bringing them back to the room."
"Okay," Dr. Stein's thumb and finger rubbed the bridge of his nose between his eyes under his glasses. Marie's mouth made a tiny 'o' as she softly put her hands over her ears. Soul's shoulders shook with a low chuckle.
"Which I appreciate. But—you still look for comfort in the wrong places…" She narrowed her eyes a little more, staring more deeply into his. "No. Not comfort. Distraction. You don't… you don't look for consoling, you don't look for ways to deal with your pain, you just look for ways to forget about it for a while. To suppress it."
William's eyes drifted down to the candle's flame and his typical heavy-setting brow came back.
"I just wish you would try not to run away from what hurts you and let me help you handle it."
He kept his eyes down and his voice low. "You pry so much to make me talk to you."
"Even if I didn't pry, you still wouldn't."
"What if talking isn't how I want to deal with stuff."
"You haven't tried."
Now he said nothing and only kept looking down at the candle.
"And when I'm the one making the effort you do that." She nodded at him. "You clam up like we never even started a conversation in the first place."
Dr. Stein shifted in his chair. "Now we're getting somewhere." He stood and took his cigarette from his mouth. "William, you need to find a way to start dealing with your issues. And Odette needs to be…" He searched the air for the word.
"Patient. And understanding. And not overly-assertive." Marie said carefully.
"Can we not do this—here, like— …" William uncomfortably rubbed the back of his neck and let his hand fall back to his lap with a slap and looked back at Odette. "Why do we need them here to talk to each other, huh?"
"Because we do! Apparently. This stuff is out in the open now, isn't it?"
"I'm not—talking about this shit in front of them." He stood up from the cushion and went towards the door.
Odette bolted up. "Do you promise that if it's just me and you that you will talk to me?"
"Yes. Fine. Yes. I'm not gonna be his—f*cking experiment." William gestured at Dr. Stein who only lazily puffed on his cigarette.
"Fine." Odette brushed past him and opened the door and left. Her partner scoffed and went after her, slamming the door shut behind him.
The three instructors were left in silence. The doctor talked out of one side of his mouth. "That was pretty good."
Marie's eye went dull as she looked to him.
Soul sighed with his hands in his pockets. "I miss Maka."
Odette entered their apartment and stood in his way. "That was embarrassing. You promised me you would behave."
"I'm not good at behaving when no one else is, that's not my thing." He shrugged.
"You were the only one being an asshole."
"I'm the only asshole? What about Frank, huh? He told us to do that so he could watch us get pissed off at each other. Everything's an experiment to him, everyone's a freaking specimen. This is the shit he gets off on and I'm not giving him that—that smug prick—"
"Oh my God, William, give it a rest. Yes, he's weird, we are all perfectly aware of that, but he is not out to get you."
"I never said he was out to get me, I said he was a smug prick," he said simply, wrinkling his brow as if he were confused as to how she had become confused.
"A smug prick who saved your life." She jabbed a finger at him.
"Because Grim told him to. And he wouldn't get any from Marie if he didn't." He walked around her to the kitchen.
She followed him. "He cares about you."
"He hates me," William dug around in the fridge.
"You just don't know him and he doesn't know you. Have you ever thought that maybe the reason why you seem to butt heads with him so much is that you have a lot in common?"
He stopped in his tracks and turned to her with a less than gentle expression. "Is that supposed to be funny."
"Think about it, William. Where you came from, what you've been through. The things you've seen… The things you've done."
He went on to close the fridge and take a bottle of rum out of the cabinet instead. "He's not interested in making a connection, Odette, and neither am I."
"Fine. You don't have to talk to him. But talk to me." She moved closer and leaned one hip against the counter with her arms crossed. "You said you would when we were alone. We're alone now." Her blue eyes became infiltrating rather than open and receiving.
He pursed his lips again, grasping the neck of the amber bottle in his fist. "You know, I can't think of a single thing to talk about."
"William!" she snapped.
"There's not anything bothering me right now that you don't know about so—rain check." He slipped past her, taking the bottle with him.
She chased after him. "Don't you dare!" Odette nearly hit her nose on the door to his room when he closed it. "DAMN it!" She kicked the door hard before growling and storming off to her own room and slamming her own door with a mighty crash.