A/N: This is set in the summer between Seasons 2 and 3. This will eventually contain some level of spoiler for the season 2 finale of Veronica Mars, but I will give a heads-up when that chapter actually comes up.
Maybe I should cry for help
Maybe I should kill myself (myself, myself)
-Sail, AWOLNATION
What if your hinges are all rusting?
What if, in fact, you're just disgusting?
-Razzle Dazzle, Billy Flynn (Chicago)
Chapter 1
A steady rain lashes against the window.
Seth stares out, blankly taking in the gloomy sky and the raindrops splattering and sliding down the glass. He frowns, biting at his fingernail.
It's kind of embarrassing, but he's always felt a little uneasy being away from home during a storm. It's not so bad when he's lying on his bed and listening to the rain rhythmically ping against his own rooftop. Then, it's kind of soothing.
Times like now, he just feels trapped, imagining flooded and washed out roadways, yellow wooden barriers across the road, stranding him.
He also really hates the way damp clothes feel heavy and cling to your skin and never feel fully dry so that you're just like, trying to go about your day but keep getting distracted by how annoying everything feels.
And then when you finally get to take off your wet clothes, it's like you have to wrestle everything off of your body, like your sweater is trying to graft itself to your skin.
And don't get him started on taking off wet jeans. If there are circles of hell-
"...Seth? Where are you right now?"
"Hmm?" Seth tears his eyes away from the window and squints at Dr. Max. "Sorry, what were you saying?" The question is halfway out of his mouth before he realizes what Dr. Max had said.
Where are you right now?
He hates that question. It's such a therapist question.
He's here obviously, not that he wants to be.
Not that he ever wants to be.
Therapy hasn't been all bad exactly, but Dr. Max seems hellbent on excavating everything Seth had so skillfully and intentionally been burying for years.
He's also starting to think that Dr. Max had been much easier on him when he was 10-when he was smaller and more frightened of everything and far more pathetic.
He's concerned that Dr. Max maybe doesn't recognize that he is still all of those things-small and frightened of everything and exceedingly pathetic.
Or anyway, Dr. Max continued to plow through his feeble defenses, continued to call him out as he worked to sidestep, to evade, to avoid.
Like the other week, when he'd tried to monologue about the inherent shame and embarrassment of being a baby, of not being able to hold your own head up or go anywhere by yourself or make any choices of your own.
Infancy, he'd argued passionately, was something that should be gotten through and then never acknowledged again by anyone involved, because for some reason people liked to reminisce like it wasn't all a hideous series of indignities: You used to wail if anyone put you down for even a second and Hey, I used to change your diapers, kiddo and You used to clap for yourself whenever you peed on the potty.
Just when he was picking up steam and really driving his point home, Dr. Max had interrupted him.
"It's uncomfortable for you to think about times when you were really helpless, huh?" His frown had been grave and sympathetic, but Seth was also certain he detected an underlying layer of triumph, like he'd again tricked Seth into revealing more about himself than he'd wanted to.
Which, Seth had revealed more about himself than he'd wanted to, but he'd walked right into that without any help, thank you.
He's really been trying to be honest in therapy, for the most-
"Seth, you still with me?"
"Hmmm?" Seth has to strain to refocus his eyes on Dr. Max, to not let them drift back over to the window.
"I was saying you're visiting your mother tomorrow, right?"
"Yup."
"How are you feeling about that?"
"Good."
Seth can see Dr. Max's expression shift, see his slow little nod, can see that he's working up to something that's bound to be annoying.
"Summer slept over last night," he blurts out.
Dr. Max's eyebrows lift.
"Oh." Dr. Max nods a little more as he takes this in. "And what led to that?"
"Nothing really led to it," Seth says. "We fell asleep watching The Valley. Which, have you ever seen that show?" He sees Dr. Max giving him a look, but chooses to ignore it. "You'd probably lapse into a light coma too. I mean, I'm trying to humor Summer, but it's-
Dr. Max clears his throat.
Seth stops.
"So Summer spent the night, and...?"
Seth looks down at his hands.
He's been trying to be honest in therapy, but also, telling Dr. Max anything was giving him ammunition that could and would be used against him later.
It also creeped him out, thinking about how Dr. Max walked around all day with the knowledge of Seth's sex life stored somewhere in his brain.
Not like he'd sit around thinking about it, but like, was Dr. Max ever at home toasting an English muffin and then randomly struck with a thought about how fucked up Seth was, how weird it was that Seth didn't masturbate because it creeped him out to touch himself, but that he was careful to imply that he did-when the occasion arose for such a thing-because it would raise a big red flag, a guy who looked like him but didn't have a close working relationship with one or both of his hands.
Oh yeah, Dr. Max had too much information, and far too much ammunition.
Because it had spilled out eventually, sitting on Dr. Max's couch, every mortifying detail of his sex life. He'd admitted, stuttering and mumbling and red-faced, that—strictly speaking—he didn't let Summer touch his penis, at least not for longer than a few seconds, that sometimes he had to hum loudly in his head to drown out the sounds of Summer moaning, that the last time she'd gone down on him, he'd had a panic attack and thrown up, that anytime her hand so much as drifted towards the hem of his shirt, he had to shift his body away, unbuckle his own belt, tug down his own pants and boxers, that he needed to do all of these things to keep separate the things that needed to stay separate in his mind.
That, even then, there were times when Summer's hand on his back or a sharp inhalation of breath or a squeak of the bed frame would set part of him spiraling, that he'd find himself repeating over and over again in his mind, It'sSummeritsSummeritsSummeritsSummer.
And Dr. Max didn't seem impressed by Seth's overall ability to have a lot of sex quite successfully, seeming more alarmed by how Seth would define the word successfully.
"Seth?"
Seth looks up.
Dr. Max looks concerned.
Seth has to pull some semblance of himself together, before Dr. Max tries to talk him through grounding techniques that make Seth feel like a Golden Retriever at obedience school.
"She said I kind of freaked her out." Seth clears his throat. "I mean, she said it kind of like she was joking or it wasn't a big deal, but..." He trails off.
"What happened?"
"I guess I must've woken up in the middle of the night and been blanked out or something." Seth's eyes dart over to Dr. Max and he grimaces, seeing Dr. Max's sympathetic frown, the attentive crease in his brow. "I don't even remember waking up," he admits.
Seth hates his own emotions about his problems, about The Trauma, about the way that The Trauma has wreaked havoc on more than half of his life at this point, but even worse was seeing any of that reflected in the emotions and the faces of others, his dad's eyes going all watery and his voice all quivery, seeing the slight shifts in Dr. Max's expressions affirming that what Seth is dealing with is Sad and Traumatic and Intense.
They probably don't mean to pity him-he's sure Dr. Max has taken some course in like, Advanced Empathetic Facial Expressions-but it all feels, deeply and agonizingly, like pity.
"That sounds scary-not knowing what happened."
Seth snorts. "Yeah. And it happens like that sometimes, like with my dad, but that feels..."
"Different?"
Seth nods. "I mean it's all horrible, but it's not like I've ever had to explain anything to him." His expression darkens. "I mean, after he knew and everything," he adds needlessly. He clears his throat. "It's uh...I don't really know how to explain things to Summer when I have no idea what happened."
"What did she say happened?"
"She wouldn't really say." Seth bites his lip. "At first she was laughing and saying I said all of this weird stuff, but then I think she saw that I was kind of freaking out and then she just said she didn't really remember anything, just that it was 'random', whatever that means."
"You're worried about how she's understanding what happened, if she's putting things together."
Seth nods, hating that it's going to sound like he's proving Dr. Max right.
Dr. Max had assured him that none of what he'd described about his sex life had been that surprising or unusual, given Seth's history, but he'd also asked Seth if he thought that Summer didn't notice all of the ways that he maneuvered through each moment that they were intimate-which, gross-with each other. He asked if Seth thought that Summer didn't have any confusion or questions about any of this, and had then seemed thoroughly unimpressed by Seth's response, which had been a firm and resounding I actually don't like to think about that.
And all of that had led into a larger and more annoying conversation about how concerning it was that Seth was refusing to Communicate, which Dr. Max alleged was a really important part of any intimate relationship, but was perhaps especially important given Seth's-and here was that word again-history.
Dr. Max had spun a fairy tale scenario, Seth and Summer trying some of these things that freaked him out, the being done to, and being able to stop immediately if it felt like too much, because they'd be Communicating with each other, because they'd be sensitive to each other's needs, because it wouldn't just be Seth trying to create and enforce the parameters of a two-person relationship and a two-person encounter without involving the second person in any of the planning.
"That's a pretty lonely way to exist in a relationship," Dr. Max had pointed out.
Which, sure, okay.
Whatever.
But also, what the fuck exactly was the alternative?
"Oh yeah, that'll be sexy," Seth had said, rolling his eyes. "We'll have sex and then I'll call a timeout because I get too sad. That'll really get her hot."
"And how sexy do you feel with the way things are now, having to be the one to take your own pants off every time?"
Seth had loaded up the machine gun and placed it in Dr. Max's capable hands, and the good doctor had proceeded to thoughtfully unload a spray of bullets into his defenseless body.
And he'd wanted to tell Dr. Max that wincing when you say something bitchy to show that you know you're being bitchy doesn't actually soften the bitchiness of the whole thing.
"Seth, I'm wondering if you're in an okay spot to be having this conversation right now. It kind of feels like you keep leaving the room, like maybe it's too much to be here right now." Dr. Max is staring at him with the level appraising gaze of his.
"I'm fine," Seth says, sitting up, reorienting himself to the stupid moment. "I'm here, I'm good, nowhere I'd rather be, raring to go for this whole mental health thing, etc."
He's really not in the mood for the obedience school routine.
"Okay." Dr. Max does that slow nod thing again, looking reluctant to drop the subject, but seemingly still intrigued by the Summer situation. "So what happened with Summer..." he trails off, inviting Seth to pick up the thread.
"I'm kind of losing it, not knowing what I said or did," Seth admits, inhaling a shaky breath.
He'd kind of put the evening with Summer into a box in some distant corner of his mind and forgotten about it. Unearthing the box now, he could feel himself start to panic again, his head going light, his heart pounding out of his chest.
"It sounds terrifying," Dr. Max says. "You put a lot of energy and effort into very carefully hiding the trauma and hiding that there's anything wrong, but this thing happened that's outside of your control and you don't know what Summer's thinking about it, or how to approach it with her."
"Or if I should approach it with her," Seth corrects. "For all I know I didn't say anything incriminating. I could've busted out some Gregorian chants or something."
"It's interesting that you use the word 'incriminating,'" Dr. Max notes, leaning back in his chair. "It generally implies that a person has done something wrong."
Seth shoots Dr. Max an irritated look. "Yes, I know, how weird that I would talk like Summer was finding out I'd committed a crime as opposed to what she'd really be finding out, the totally-not-shameful fact that I was horrifically victimized for years. Funny that that would feel like a big deal, huh?"
"Do you feel like I minimize what it would mean for you to tell Summer or anyone else about the abuse?"
"No."
"You know you can tell me if it does feel like that."
"I know." Seth shrugs. "But it doesn't." He picked at a loose bit of rubber on his sneaker. "It just all really sucks, you know?"
"Yeah, it does." Dr. Max gives him a sympathetic smile. He looks thoughtful. "Is your dad in the waiting room today?"
Seth tries not to smile.
He knew they'd get here.
Dr. Max kept pushing him to invite his dad into a session. He argued that it made sense for Seth to try to learn from the adults who'd taken care of him. Seth was getting older; soon enough he'd be the adult taking care of himself, and he could either try to learn from the triumphs and mistakes of his caregivers before him, or he could continue on his current trajectory and wing it and half ass it and hope for the best.
Like with a lot of things Dr. Max proposed, Seth could see the wisdom in it, but it wasn't something he was particularly excited about, so he kept putting it off.
He just preferred to leave some things unspoken about.
It was humiliating, the extent to which his dad still took care of him and the extent to which Seth still let himself be taken care of, and the extent to which sometimes Seth didn't even get to choose, was just a sprawling mess that his dad had to mop up.
Simple moments could chafe in his mind for weeks. He'd imagine what Summer would think if she knew that he left her house after a date and found an excuse to sleep in his parents' bed, what she'd think if she'd seen his dad wrestling him out of his vomit-splattered t-shirt like he was a toddler, like he was completely helpless and completely pathetic and not anyone that a girl like Summer would or should want to take on a date or invite into her bed.
He could kind of handle the whole double life thing most days, but shining a blazing hot spotlight on his pathetic alter ego wasn't his idea of a good time.
And it didn't feel empowering or enlightening, the idea of inviting his dad in to have a frank man-to-man-to-therapist talk about the care and keeping of Seth Cohen. He's also skeptical that it will make him any better equipped to take care of himself or to prevent himself from blanking out in the middle of the night or to really do anything differently from how he's doing it.
So Seth knows that it would be choosing one excruciating conversation for another one, but he's walked right into this one also without any help, thank you.
And maybe it was a good thing. Dr. Max was probably right that he should do it, and what better way to force himself than to simultaneously reward himself by avoiding the worst thing, the Talking About His Mom thing that everyone seemed hellbent on him doing?
Like that would help anything, make her less of an alcoholic and make him less sorry about his hand in driving her there.
"Yes." Seth nodded. "My dad is in the waiting room." He looks at Dr. Max innocently, brow furrowing. "Why?"