Chelen City: Interlude 1

 Notes: It's time for a Kieron POV, yay! Have some therapy fun ;)

Title: Chelen Cty: Interlude 1

***

Interlude 1

 

For his first therapy session, Kieron was given the option of going to the therapist’s office or having her come to Elanus’s house. Elanus had been all for her coming to his place—“so she doesn’t get a chance to fuck with you on foreign territory”—but in the end, Kieron opted to go in to her office. It felt wrong to bring someone who intended him…whatever she intended…into his safe place.

Kieron knew the idea behind therapy. It was an ancient practice intended to help people heal traumas and come to a new understanding of themselves and the things they did, or that had been done to them. He’d had therapy before, on Trakta, and it had been awful. Culturally-specific therapy was not generally condoned within Federation planets for incoming refugees, but Trakta had always done things their own way, and it had taken a few sessions for Kieron to figure out why he felt so much worse coming out of therapy than he did going into it.

Eventually he learned to say what they wanted and, once he accepted himself as a lesser being and swore that he would leave Trakta at the earliest opportunity, his therapy was stopped. Kieron had promise himself that that was the last time he’d ever be subjected to this kind of bullshit.

And yet here he was.

“Privacy is enforced pretty heavily, but if you push hard enough with your implant I’ll know,” Elanus had assured him before he left that morning. “I’ll come and get you, no matter what. And Lizzie is monitoring you too, and she’s got way better reach than I do, so—”

“This isn’t a hostage negotiation,” Kieron had told Elanus. “I won’t need extracting. I’ll be fine.”

“You say that, but that’s not your ‘fine’ face.”

“Stop extrapolating from my face.”

Elanus had huffed. “What else am I supposed to extrapolate from? You could be held at knifepoint or about to be kicked out an airlock and you’d probably still try to bullshit me about being mm-mmmpphh…”

Sometimes the only way to shut Elanus up was with a kiss. It was especially satisfying to grab him by the shoulders and drag him down to Kieron’s height unexpectedly—Elanus loved being manhandled, probably because it was so novel for him. “I’ll be back,” he said after breaking the kiss. “Make sure we get our open channel with Xilinn after this, okay?”

“I will,” Elanus had promised, and so…

Kieron went. He followed the directions laid out in his implant, turned where he needed to turn, took different tubes here and there and generally was as unnoticeable as possible, easy to do when you were surrounded by giants. By the time he got to the therapist’s office and knocked on her door, he was just on time.

She opened promptly for him. “Mr. Carr.” The woman smiled gently. “Thank you for coming today.”

Kieron didn’t say anything for a moment, just looked at her. Delilah Farraday—unmarried name Chester—was a golden-haired waif of a woman, shorter than he was by a foot. She must look positively childlike next to her Ganian wife, but whatever worked for them. She had large brown eyes that glittered even in the low, soothing light of her office—implants of some kind, he’d bet on it. Her skin was free of all blemishes except one, the lines of an old and familiar brand pale against her dark brown arm.

Eventually Kieron nodded, which was all his therapist seemed to expect. She ushered him into her space, a single large room filled with so many real plants he could feel the ambient humidity change around him. She gestured for him to sit in an ergonomic, size-adjusted chair and sat across from him on a stool. “You might not remember me, but—”

“I do.”

“Ah.” She looked pensive. “I wondered.”

“If that’s all you wanted to know, you could have just asked me about it in a casual setting, not played an elaborate game to get me alone.”

Delilah Farraday shook her head. “This isn’t a game, Kieron.”

“Mr. Carr.”

“I prefer informal address in a therapy setting.”

“I don’t.”

“Yet this is my office, Kieron.” She smiled and gestured around them. “And as a patient accepted into my practice, abiding by some of my simple rules is one of the terms. Surely you read that in the paperwork you signed.”

Kieron let his eyes narrow slightly. “I didn’t realize you’d make such ridiculous rules. How else do you plan on infantilizing me?”

“Using only last names can be construed as confrontational. First names are more casual and yet more intimate at the same time.” She sighed. “Please.”

Oh, what the hell. “Fine. Delilah.”

“Thank you.” She seemed genuinely pleased, too. “Tell me, how are you finding Gania so far?”

“Acceptable.”

“Expand on that.”

Ugh. Two minutes in and he already preferred the kind of therapy where he was browbeaten into spewing bullshit. “I’m happy to be back with Elanus.”

“Yes, you and Mr. Desfontaines began a relationship at your last posting, didn’t you?” It was phrased as a question but Kieron knew it wasn’t one, so he said nothing. “Your files show only one significant relationship prior to this one, with a Traktan citizen you went to great lengths for. He and Mr. Desfontaines seem like very different individuals. What was it that drew you to them?”

“Why do you want to know?” This seemed like random, prurient inquiry.

“I can’t establish a baseline for our sessions without getting some more information on the biggest influences in your life, Kieron. And since I know you won’t share them without a little prodding, I figured turning it into a part of our session would be a good way to break the ice between us, so to speak.” She tilted her head a bit. “I’ll share too, if you’d like.”

“If you feel like it.” He didn’t care, but she seemed to want to. Anything that will end this faster.

“When I was brought to Gania after Hadrians’ Colony, I was very unsure of myself. I didn’t know the rules or what to do here. Learning those rules, or rather the lack thereof in many cases, made me feel safe. Gania is a civilized world, an accepted member of the Federation.”

“Ganians condone high-level assassination as an attention-getting scheme.”

Delilah chuckled. “They do, but that’s one of those thorny cultural issues we sometimes trip over, isn’t it? Heavens knows the first time I heard a bugle here, I immediately dropped into parade rest and startled the hell out of my roommates.”

Oh, the bugle call…Kieron remembered that. He hadn’t thought about it in years—regimented calls that required immediate obedience or brought down a terrible punishment.

Delilah clasped her hands. “Mm, I see I’ve struck a nerve. Shall we talk about that too?”

What the hell. “Fine.”