Freud would not be proud [Closed to Howard and Kais]

[lillylivered]

While he'd wandered the city, Mark hadn't found his apartment or the building he worked at. In fact, he didn't find anything he recognized. But he did find a nice house that was only partly demolished. And inside was nice, comfortable furniture. No black leather couches but that was probably for the best.

Mark quickly moved a chair opposite one of the couches and took a seat. He took out his omnicomm and tried typing a few notes to himself as practice. Then he tried lying down in said couch and looked around. He could see the faded pastel colors of the wallpaper, a nice fireplace on the other side of the room. There weren't any paintings let alone upbeat posters promoting diversity, unity, or asking people to get tested for lycanthropy. Oh well, you couldn't have everything.

Mark got up, sent a message to his first patients letting them know when and where to meet him, and walked outside of the house. He took several deep breaths.

"O.K. Mark, there's no need to worry. You're on a living space ship full of people you've never met. How bad can it be?"

Comments

[greatergone]

Kais figured he better not attend his appointment wearing armor and carrying his rifle. Not only would it be intimidating but how the heck was he supposed to be 'cured' if he was running around wearing implements of destruction.

He showed up to where he was asked to be, right on time. Being early or late wasn't something a Tau would ever do. When he arrived, his red eyes shot around, looking for danger where it obviously wasn't. Being alert wasn't something he could ever lose.

[lillylivered]

Mark didn't seem all that surprised by Kais's appearance. There was only the briefest pause before he smiled and waved at him.

"Hi, I'm Mark Lilly. You must be- sorry, how would you like me to call you?"

[greatergone]

Oh, right! This person was the one he wanted to mean. He stood straight up and turned his attention to Mark.

"I am Shas'la T'au Kais but you may call me Kais."

[lillylivered]

"Kais," Mark repeated. "You can call me Mark. It's good to meet you." He held out his hand.

[greatergone]

He couldn't say he was well versed in human greetings but this one was one of the simple ones. He reached out his four fingered hand and grasped Mark's in a simple handshake. "Yes, good to meet you too."

[lillylivered]

"Great. Well, let's go inside." Mark opened the door and held it open for Kais. "You can take a seat on the couch over there." He gestured to it. "So what brings you in today?"

[greatergone]

Kais quietly thanked Mark and stepped inside. Once he took a seat, he spoke up. "I was told I should speak with someone. The reason was that I was aware that I was hearing voices. Ones that told me to kill."

[lillylivered]

...How bad could it get. Sure. Mark made a silent note to himself never to say that phrase again.

"I- see." Mark held his omnicomm like a pad and typed something into it. "And how long have you been hearing these voices? Have they ever told said anything else?"

[greatergone]

"During my Trial By Fire, I was deployed to the planet Dolumar IV to rescue a member of the Ethereal Caste. It was then, while fighting enemies, that I heard the voice." He shook his head once, pondering more recent events. "I have no heard them while aboard this ship but I have not been in a fight yet."

[lillylivered]

Mark nodded and typed a few more things on his omnicomm. Just the names that Kais had mentioned and the word battle.

"Have you only heard these voices while fighting? Did they tell you to kill your enemies only or the people on your side too?" This was sounding slightly less frightening disturbing.

[greatergone]

"Yes, while fighting. But it grew worse as the campaign drove on." Did they tell him to kill allies? He didn't...think so. "It did not but...my allies would not fight by my side. They began to refer to me as the Mont'au which translates to Great Terror."

[lillylivered]

"...I see." Mark leaned back in his seat. "So they weren't there to watch your back. That must have been hard for you."

[greatergone]

"It was better that way. If they were there, they simply would have distracted me." Kais was overaggressive and he knew it.

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

Howard spends a long time standing outside the house, probably longer than the appointment itself is scheduled for. And he spends a good portion of that time trying not to hyperventilate.

He tries to tell himself that it's just a therapy appointment, one that he willingly signed up for, and compared to dinosaurs and giant squid and flesh-eating worms and the Daligig it's small potatoes. But then he remembers that he just about hyperventilated in all those scenarios too, and that thinking about them makes the panic worse, and decides that this is exactly why he needs therapy. Because clearly his own attempts to untangle the Gordian knot that is his neuroses only pulls the strands of fear tighter.

He knocks on the door and immediately assumes the defensive, small-and-non-threatening position that has become so ingrained in his body language, hands in pockets and gaze fixed on the floor.

[lillylivered]

Mark opened the door. After his last session, he was more nervous than he ought to be and it showed. Try as he did to look relaxed his muscles were tenser than usual. He smiled anyway.

"I'm Mark Lilly. You're Howard, right?"

Looking at Howard, Mark could see that this session was not going to be a walk in the park.

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"Yeah." Howard tilts his whole body slightly to look beyond Mark. What, no couch? "You don't uh, have anything better to do right now, right?"

He's totally looking for a way out of it that isn't 'I got scared off by the totally normal-looking dude in the polo shirt because I can't handle anything ever'.

"Do you need my medical file? I'm not sure how well our departments cooperate."

[lillylivered]

"My office is all yours." Mark said casually. He stepped back and held the door open for Howard. "I don't think I need your file. All I need to know is how you're doing up here." Mark tapped his own head. "Just let me know if you've ever been diagnosed with any mental disorder and we'll go from there."

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

Howard walks in and stares at the chair as if it's going to bite him.

"No, no mental disorders or anything, but I haven't seen a shrink before. I just figure something's wrong because of like...trauma, or something." He laces up his fingers and shifts awkwardly foot to foot. "I been having some trouble lately."

[lillylivered]

"There's no shame in that. Go on, have a seat." Mark stood by his own chair, waiting for Howard to sit first. He was much more relaxed now. This was more familiar to him.

"What's on your mind?"

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"Uh." Howard takes a ginger seat on the couch and wraps his arms around himself. "I don't sleep good. And usually I wake up and I think about thinks that might have gone wrong when I was sleeping, and then I can't breathe and feel like I'm about to die."

He shrugs. "And sometimes it's not when I'm sleeping."

[lillylivered]

Mark sat down across from him. He leaned forward a little in his seat.

"How often does this happen? Does these attacks last very long?" He asked gently or what he hoped was gently.

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"Every other night, almost. It's been happening more and more." Howard stares at the edge of the couch to avoid having to look at totally-normal-guy-in-polo-shirt. "I get these shooting pains too, and really dizzy, but that's probably just because I'm not breathing good, right?"

It's easier to talk about the symptoms than the roots of the problem, Howard realizes. Symptoms are just facts.

[lillylivered]

Mark frowned but kept looking at Howard. "It could be." But he doubted it. "Have you asked your doctor about it?"

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"No. It doesn't feel like a physical thing. I mean, it does, because it's all physical, but it wouldn't be happening whenever I get really worked up and nervous if it was just something wrong with my body, right?"

Not to mention that despite having access to Faiza, Howard's convinced that by virtue of being a medic he should be completely in charge of his own health.

[lillylivered]

"Well," Mark said slowly but cheerfully. "It sounds like you're having panic attacks and those can affect your breathing and heart rate. But if you're having pains then you may have a psychosomatic problem, where your mind is projecting pain onto your body. We'll have to get to the underlying cause to treat the symptoms."