Outrageous (Josh)

[Dr. Sean Neville]

((OOC: This is set the evening after the events of “Thought Carried Into Action and thus backdated several months, well before Election Day.))


Josh’s campaign meet-and-greet and fundraiser had started well. A large and diverse group of people had attended, and most of them had agreed with most if not all of Josh’s platform. His views on gun control had a tendency to split Vermont residents, since many of them were liberal but some came from hunting families. Not that the Town Council had any control over guns, not since the Supreme Court had decided McDonald v. Chicago in 2010. Still, most of those in attendance were pro-LGBT, pro-meta-human, pro-environmentalism, anti-racist, pro-women, pro-labor, and so Josh had made gains and met some of their neighbors. Both he and the telepath had been in high spirits.

Then they had met Edgar Alegría, and the success of the first half of the meet-and-greet had quickly been forgotten. Edgar was metaphobic. More than that, he proved to be everything that Sean had warned Josh about when he first decided to run for Town Council last year. He made accusations about how Josh intended to cheat in the election by using Sean’s powers. He cast aspersions on the psychiatrist’s character based solely on the nature of his meta-human abilities. Some of his remarks had been downright cruel and had no basis in reality.

Sean had not reacted during the exchange, except to excuse himself when Edgar had finished (and only once he had finished, as the telepath had needed to keep an eye on his partner). The rest of the day had held a less exuberant tone, although both men had put on a face for the rest of their attendees.

Afterward, they had packed up the picnic supplies and the campaign literature before returning home. Josh had ranted the entire trip; by contrast, Sean said nothing from the moment they piled into the car until they had gone up to their bedroom to change into more comfortable clothing.

[Joshua Bernstein]

While Sean changed Josg sprawled across the bed on his back, one arm flung over his eyes. Sean hadn't responded to any of his ranting, and between that and the negativity he felt over the bigotry and accusations he was feeling drained.

He expected a certain amount of hostility, although not as much in Pilot Ridge as other locations would provide. He had dealt with anti Semitism in work before. He's dealt with homophobia. He had never personally encountered that degree of psychic bias despite his decades long friendship with Sean.

A headache was beginning to materialize but he couldn't be bothered to get anything for it.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Sean pulled on more comfortable clothing, which involved a full switch from a suit (his attempt to remain professional and respectable during the meet-and-greet) into sweat pants and a tee shirt. He dropped his suit in the laundry bag for dry cleaning later in the week and then disappeared into the bathroom to wash up.

After a couple of moments, he reemerged with a glass of water in one hand and a bottle of Excedrin in the other. He set both down on Josh’s end table, before seating himself on his own side of the bed. He said nothing about bringing the remedy out to his partner; obviously, he had overheard the younger man’s thought and had sought to rectify the situation.

That was, of course, at the heart of Edgar’s accusations. That was, in some shape or form, so often at the heart of most of the anti-psychic prejudice he encountered, either manifested verbally and consciously (viciously) as Edgar had done, or in the vague discomfort that others might think but never state aloud.

Folding his hands in his lap, he finally spoke for the first time since they had piled into the car for the trip home. “You and I need to work on some responses for the next time that happens.”

Not if it happened again, but when it did. The telepath had no doubts that this would recur as the campaign continued.

[Joshua Bernstein]

Josh pushed himself into a sitting position with his elbows before reaching for the exedrin gratefully.

At Sean's remark he shook his head. "I can't. I can handle it when it's just me. I can handle it when it's a client, or even a friend. It's terrible, but I can do that."

He popped the pill into his mouth and swallowed then added "it's different when it's you."

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Sean folded his hands and shook his head as well. “You have to learn. I learned.”

The young telepath had no alternatives. He either learned to cope with it, learned how to help others cope with it, did what he could to dissuade others in their prejudices, or he would be unable to function. This type of prejudice differed so much from any other. Fortunately, as insidious as metaphobia could be, in the U.S. there so rarely existed violent reprisals. While denied equal protection under the law, it differed from voter disenfranchisement, and although the criminal code did not accurately reflect how meta-human powers worked, the mere act of being meta-human was not, in itself, illegal.

But even other meta-humans, even other psychic ones, failed to experience a prejudice where they could hear everything others thought in the deepest, darkest parts of themselves. Where that caused the underlying fear, anger, and resentment in the first place.

Of course, Sean had tried to describe this to his partner so many times over the past few decades. Josh had never truly believed him until seeing it for himself.

So often that was the case with those who did not suffer a form of oppression or marginalization.

[Joshua Bernstein]

Josh gripped the glass of water with white knuckles, a physical anchor in his mental anguish.

"But how?"

Maybe a foolish question, given the baseless accusations that were background to his life. Owning the banks, the media, the elite. Trying to bring down America, to seduce other men into depravity, to destroy western civilization and marriage.

He had learned to deal with that.

But this felt different.

"I can't stand that anyone saya those things about you." He admitted. "They can dislike me. But I never wanted you to be collateral damage."

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Sean pursed his lips together as he listened to Josh outline how he had, in fact, not listened to the telepath when he spoke of being a telepath in broader, non-psychic, non-meta-human society. He had a deep well of patience generally, one with nearly endless depths where his partner was concerned, although this frustrated him greatly.

Not only that, but apparently his partner had not listened to him when they had discussed this very topic in weighing the pros and cons of running a campaign in the first place.

So he weighed whether he would point that out to Josh, and, after a moment, decided that he would. “I told you this would happen.”

His voice held no condemnation; he was not angry as he spoke those words. Not angry at Josh. Even if he was displeased that the younger man had apparently not listened to him at all.

In fact, he had predicted that exactly this situation would occur. He vividly remember posing hypothetical comments and questions to his partner when trying to prepare him for what a campaign would be.

It had taken longer for the situation to manifest, but it had, and it had occurred exactly as he had said that it would.

[Joshua Bernstein]

Josh couldn't deny Sean's words. They had discussed it, but he hadn't realized how difficult facing it would be in reality

"You did." He sighed dejectedly. "I knew it would sting but not so badly!"

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Sean shrugged his shoulders while keeping his hands clasped in his lap. The telepath was used to Josh’s more emotional displays, was long used to the fact that he had to be the more mature person, not merely with his partner but essentially in any given situation.

That would wear on a person.

After all, his patience had limits, even if most people could never conceive of reaching that point with him.

He then shook his head, more to clear away a train of thought than to disagree with his partner or to reprimand him for what he considered to be an unnecessary (although not over-) reaction.

“You have to get used to it,” he replied in a matter-of-fact tone. Sean offered no other options. No other options existed, because people around them would not change overnight. Particularly not outwardly metaphobic individuals like Edgar and his friends and colleagues at PUSE.

Then, because he wanted them to find themselves on the same page because this was his life and not merely an esoteric topic of discussion, Sean added, “Not just for running this campaign, but if we’re going to make it through the long haul, you have to get used to it.”

[Joshua Bernstein]

"I don't want to reach a point where it doesn't upset me when someone slanders you."

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Sean sighed audibly, rather than holding it back as he might otherwise have done. It had been a long day, a long evening, and he had not wanted to open this can of worms tonight. However, they had reached that point.

At least he had yet to develop a headache, for once.

“I’m not saying that you have to accept it with a smile and a compliment.” He needed to get that out of the way, lest his partner misunderstand his point. “I’m telling you that the only way to get through this is by getting used to it so you can react accordingly and go about your life.”

He shook his head again, unclasping his hands so that he could rake his fingers through his hair. “Do you think I like how people assume the worst of me for something that has, over all, made me a better person?” That was not a rhetorical question. “Or that some people, even people who know me, can be afraid of what I know or might see inside of them? Do you think it doesn’t hurt that I’ve had people demand that I stay out of their heads when they first meet me?”

[Joshua Bernstein]

Josh shook his head in swift denial. "Of course not. I don't...I don't want you to hurt. I suppose...I suppose I was hoping I could will it out of existence so you wouldn't. "

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Sean shrugged a single time. “You know it doesn’t work that way.”

His partner was gay and Jewish. The telepath knew, from many prior conversations, that Josh’s high school graduation ceremony had been ruined by the salutatorian delivering an anti-Semitic creed against the valedictorian. And then the subsequent almost-fight, when Josh had rushed the stage but had been restrained and prevented from going further. He knew from personal experience the homophobia that Josh (and himself) had lived through for decades, before the recent mainstream acceptance over the past decade.

He reached for one of the pillows, using it to prop up his back, easing the pain from spending so much time on his feet all day and from the stress of the earlier interactions. He shifted a moment to make himself as comfortable as possible, before he continued with his point.

“What do you think Kathleen and I have been arguing about for eleven years?” He focused his full attention on his partner’s face, making plain that this was a real question rather than a hypothetical one. He expected the other man to provide an answer, and, clearly, there was a single right answer in this situation, in addition to a plethora of wrongones.

[Joshua Bernstein]

"I know..." Josh conceded. Reality and his desires didn't always align as neatly as he would like. Almost never, in fact; that was one of the reasons for holding the job that he did.

The question about Kathleen came as a surprise, and he looked up, startled. "Well...she thinks you're sinful, and...promiscuous...and...probably going to mind...control....oh."

[Dr. Sean Neville]

The way that Josh’s voice trailed off told Sean, before his partner’s exclamation, that he had realized the telepath’s point. “Oh,” he repeated, with a confirmatory nod of his head. That was exactly correct, and it had been eleven years of that, in addition to the decades of his sister’s more silent discomfort before the explosion that had led to their decade-long estrangement.

“And she’s my baby sister.” He briefly wet his lips and shook his head, as his thoughts traveled down a path that he had no desire to pursue, before he redirected himself. “She’s known me for her entire life, and she thinks that of me.” He cared less about the beliefs that he was sinful or promiscuous; Sean knew that he was not promiscuous (even if he did not judge those who were as long as they were safe and honest about it), and he had stopped caring about the notion of sin (as opposed to morality) the moment that he had become an atheist.

It was her fear of his powers that hurt so much. It was the suspicion, sometimes unconscious, on behalf of almost everyone he encountered that was so frustrating, which could weigh upon him. That was what he had grown used to over the decades.