Back to crazy town [Dr. Neville]

[Jen Mitchellson]

Jen walked down the street, once again looking for something to snack on outside her house. Hey! No one ever taught her to cook, was it really her fault she was a mess at doing anything and everything? Besides, her talents were best used applied somewhere other than house management or whatever that was called, like video games and... comics and the such. Nobody said she was perfect. 

The elastic girl smiled down at her cellphone, looking at it as if she had anything to read, like a new message from a new friend. Who was she kidding? No one but her dad ever texted her. Pathetic, right? Anyway, inside the coffee shop she went, looking forward to get something sweet and a nice cup of coffee, when her eyes caught someone she hadn't seen in a long time. Jen grinned widely. Well, how about that.

"Doctor Neville!" She exclaimed, walking up the doctor, grinning widely, "Isn't this a surprise." She crossed her arms, nibbling on her lower lip as she took him in. He hadn't changed a bit. "You know, I was thinking about you just the other day. I was all bummed out because I'd lost in this game and I thought 'Doctor Neville would know exactly what to say for me to get over this awful feeling.'" She shrugged, "Then I just got over it." She was being sarcastic, of course, but he knew that, didn't he? He knew everyone so well. Then, as an after thought, she added, "And look at this!" She did a short twirl, letting him see her from all angles. "Still not pregnant! All because of you." She nodded, her face going serious, although she was still joking, "I'd have ended up having twins had it not being for your lectures." Then she leaned forward, grinning easily. 


"Mind having a hot date with your favourite and not pregnant ex-patient, Doctor?" Hey, joining him would be much more fun than just sitting alone, "We do need to catch up and all." She didn't wait for a reply as she grabbed the nearest chair and sat down, smiling all the way. "Besides, I'm totally in to tell others I had a date with the hottest man in Hammel. Wouldn't that be fun?" 

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Sean’s tolerance for certain behaviors increased radically when the person engaged was no longer a student, and thus no longer subject to the doctor/patient and teacher/student ethical obligations. Once students found themselves as adults and graduated from Hammel, such that their interactions occurred outside of the school, or inside only as visitors, the psychiatrist displayed a greater sense of humor and far less focus on propriety. This included compliments on his appearance. While he would never act on anything with a former student, for ethical reasons, due to the age difference, and because he was happily monogamous and with Josh, he did not nip such comments in the bud immediately as he would with a current student or patient.

More than that, with the exception of a rare few, Sean enjoyed running into his former students after they had graduated. Seeing them out and about, living their lives as functional adults brought him joy. So when he ran into Jen, a smile touched his lips. She, too, hadn’t changed much, although she hadn’t graduated that long ago. “It’s nice to see you too, Jen.”

Then came her spin to show off her figure coupled with the remark about her current lack of pregnancy. “And I’m glad to hear that.” Growing up in a Catholic neighborhood where accident pregnancy happened more often than it should, he was always happy to hear that students could engage in family planning of their own accord.

She moved too quickly for him to refuse, but that was fine as he had no intention of doing so. He was here alone today, and he would enjoy the company. “It would be,” he said with a smile. “And since you found me and not the other way around, you should tell me what you’ve been up to.”

[Jen Mitchellson]

He was smiling and she grinned. It was nice seeing him so relaxed, which was totally odd. Finding professors outside school was really weird, but he wasn't exactly her... doctor therapist type thing anymore, was he? "Of course it is!" She said, waving a hand out.

So she was sitting and grinning. Well, this felt awkward, and she was loving every second of it. Besides, he was already asking her questions and that certainly brought memories back. Ah, to be young and rebellious, not that she'd changed much under his care. Boo, that said little about him, didn't it? She liked to believe she was a special cookie and she wasn't like any other patient he had. But for someone who kept talking to absolutely every student (that she knew of, or at least, that had seemed at that age) the chance that she was different was very slim.

"Don't you get tired of that?" She said with a grin, "You hear everybody else's problems all the time. Must be exhausting! Especially listening to so many brats! What could they be going through? I mean, i know I was an idiot when I was sixteen, you know it too." She smirked as she didn't want to let him win just yet. It was her own personal game, one she'd always lost. Playing in therapy was a great way to waste time after all. "I want to know about you, professor." So she leaned forward, still smiling playfully, "How's the love life?" She wondered, because that would be such good fuel for gossip.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Sean settled at her table, allowing her to take the lead since she was the one who had found him and invited him to sit with her. That was the least that he could do as far as etiquette was concerned.

“The day I get tired of it is the day that I retire.” That was Sean’s general approach to being a support person. If the day came that he could no longer dispense helpful advice, or that he found listening to other people talk about their lives and their deepest secrets and hidden desires and emotions and stressors and problems and fears and dreams frustrating, then he would have to stop, for his own mental health as well as to allow those around him to find a better resource.

Today was not that day.

“First of all, you don’t have to call me ‘Professor.’” In fact, nobody needed to call him Professor, as he was not an academic. The only people who called him that tended to do so in order to make a Professor X joke, and even those people proved fewer and farther between as the years went by. “You’ve graduated, and you can call me ‘Sean’ if you want. ‘Doc’ if you don’t.”

Then his smile shifted from one of serendipitous greeting to one of deep fondness, and his eyes lit up with affection. “My partner and I are very happy.”

His partner was no secret from the community at large. Josh visited him at Hammel, and the two of them often went out on the town together. It was difficult to believe that it had already been three years since their reconciliation.

“In the interest of fairness, how is your social life going?”

[Jen Mitchellson]

"You have such twisted hobbies." She said, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. "They say those who end up as a therapist are looking for a cure for themselves." She grinned, "Are you crazy?" She wondered, "Sick?" Oh, how she longed to know all his little dirty secrets, if he had any. Secrets made people so much more interesting. Like Caelum and his... thing. Yeah, she wasn't about to start talking about that now.

Not call him professor? She snorted. "But it sounds so much better!" She complained, "Much naughtier. Can you imagine? When I start telling people i had a dirty date with an old... 'Professor' of mine. That sounds SO much better than Doctor? Everyone can go out with a doctor. But a professor has authority over you. Makes it all more juicy."

His partner? She sighed. Just for how long had they've been together anyway? She really didn't understand that need to spend time with just one person. That sounded so boring. Didn't they get tired of each other?

He asked his own question and Jen shrugged. "It's perfect, like you can imagine." She said with a wide grin, "Full of one night stands and random encounters with strangers." She so wanted to make him nervous or blush or get any reaction from him. Poised Doctor Neville. Ah, how she'd dreaded those moments talking to him when she'd been younger and now, it seemed, was no different. "But I already told you. We're not talking about me today." She grinned again.

"So," She leaned forward on the table, "Heard any good stories from those psycho kids of yours? Anything juicy and worth telling?"

[Dr. Sean Neville]

“Hardly.” Sean would never describe his hobbies as twisted. In fact, many people considered his hobbies to be boring by comparison, particularly now that he and Josh had cut back on their alcohol consumption, and had changed their diets to low-sodium. What were his hobbies? He did woodworking, he knit occasionally, he cooked and baked, he solved crossword puzzles, he read the newspaper or various books, and he watched classic movies.

Aside from his intimate moments with Josh, which he hid from students and did not broadcast elsewhere. Nothing constituted twisted.

However, he did not argue that point. Instead, he sipped his coffee.

Unfortunately for her, but fortunately for his ability to cope with life, he was largely unflappable. While he remained happily coupled and considered himself monogamously-inclined, and while he had no interest in casual sex for himself, he cast no judgment on other people for having different preferences or inclinations, as long as everyone involved was an adult and had given active, enthusiastic consent. “I hope that you’re being safe. Otherwise, you can always come back to Hammel and take some aids from my desk.”

He still kept the bowl of condoms and other items available for student use.

“Nobody is ‘psycho.’” How he loathed that term. He loathed it like he loathed the word crazy and he never used it unless to tell others not to. “But there isn’t much to talk about. This semester has been quiet so far, everyone on their best behavior.”

Except for Phoenix and Oriel, but that was a case of actual domestic abuse. He would not gossip about it.