Aftershock - Closed

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Sean understood. Not from having this scenario thrust upon him, providing a wedge in his life, but he understood both psychologically and a bit personally from a different situation and perspective. Truthfully, he knew what it was to go through the motions, but now wasn’t the time to discuss his life experiences. Personally, he wouldn’t have told James that, but he also wasn’t Chase and he hadn’t had to live with James the past few weeks, watching him recoil from his touch, from the rest of the family. “There isn’t going to be a magic moment where the meaning comes back to you, and you’re suddenly ‘there’ again.” Sean did hate to be the bearer of bad news, but psychological facts could be cold. “It’s gradual, and the more pressure you put on yourself, the harder it will be to succeed.”

The psychiatrist set down his mug and then leaned back in his chair, resting his hands on his knees. “I get that it’s difficult to live your life in a Venetian play. But there’s a median between pretending nothing is wrong and letting the pressure collapse everything around you. Acknowledge it, confront it – slowly.”

Sean had been fortunate – or not, in his opinion as he’d always wanted a family – to have never been in a position to have to make promises as a child’s primary caretaker. The extent of promises in his life to children was to either love them forever, as he had with his nephew, or to do his best to help them, as he did with the students. What James described was familiar child behavior but was also completely foreign to him on a personal level. Niko was young, and he wouldn’t know how to identify subtle differences in language; thus Sean wouldn’t advise James to correct him slightly by promising a variant of what the boy asked of him. “I’m not a father, James. Your instincts are going to be better than mine when it comes to what to tell Niko specifically. If he makes you promise, you’ll have to do what feels right, and if not promising feels best, then talk to him about how you’ll try. Talk to him with Chase there, so Chase can make the promise for you.”

[Dr. James Campbell]

"That makes sense." James slouched forward, his elbows on his knees and his hands supporting his head. "I'm dreading the holidays. It was bad enough going down to my parents' house for the Fourth of July and I've gotten worse since then. " Sean had been to his house for his annual Christmas/holiday party. He usually went all-out with decorating, and sometimes Chase would tease him about buying a house with high ceilings just so he could buy the largest Christmas tree on the lot. Everyone expected him to be excited as a nine-year-old for Christmas, now. Instead, he was feeling apprehensive, four months in advance. "It will be Niko's first Christmas with us. What if I'm still like this then?"

In theory, James was okay with the process being gradual. That was fine, so long as it wasn't so gradual that he was still fucked up come the holidays. He didn't want that taken from him too, so there was even more pressure.

He put down his mug as well, then crossed his arms again. James had always been anxious, though he had developed rituals that helped lesson the anxiety, this was something new. The fear of being a bad father couldn't be fixed by taking his shoes off at the door. And reorganizing the kitchen so everything is perfect wouldn't making him stop shying away from Chase. His usual method of coping with pressure was irrelevant here.

"Yeah. I suppose we could do that." They wouldn't though. He wouldn't put Chase through making a promise there was a even a slight chance he couldn't keep. "I'm supposed to be able to take care of him." The second half of that thought, "And I told Gabriel about him." went unsaid. On top of everything else, he had put his son in danger. And he was just a kid; James didn't know what would happen if someone with that level of skill with puppetry took over a child. He didn't want to think about the consequences of that, but possibilities kept running through his head.

How was he supposed to raise his kid to not think metas with mental powers were dangerous, when he couldn't even convince himself?

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Sean could imagine how out of sorts James had been at the Fourth of July with his large family. There were reasons to want to avoid that, better yet to remove all the blocs. It all fed into the need to “go back to normal.” It was unfortunate that holidays popped up every so often and that James came from a family that made such a ritual of them. If he were in the telepath’s position, he wouldn’t care about Christmas and there would be no pressure, but then he also wouldn’t be James.

“The holidays are several months away, so if this is still so much of a problem in a few months, we can make a plan of action then.” Sean didn’t believe that James would gain anything from obsessing over the holidays now, when it was still summer. With patience, dedication, and low pressure, he could make great strides in four months, but all three of those were necessary for success. Otherwise the other man would frustrate himself with a slow rate of progress and could undermine the goal by viewing the whole matter as hopeless. This was the number one cause of diets failing in the United States, and this was far more important than dieting.

If worse came to worst, James and Chase could take a collective holiday approach with Niko, allowing him to experience a holiday season that was blended with the other staff and students at Hammel. As it was his first Christmas, the two men could get away with doing something to make the holiday more “special” than usual.

Paternal instincts were hard to supersede; Sean knew that even if he had no experience with children of his own. “I know, and you’re going to keep doing your best. That’s all any of us can do.” He and Chase could do as they would with reassuring Niko; the psychiatrist had no further suggestions along that avenue.

Gabriel did know, and that was a problem, although Sean was loathe to consider Gabriel’s knowledge as the result of James “telling” the puppeteer about Niko. The puppeteer had ripped it out of his mind during a struggle, just as Sean didn’t consider most of what he learned through telepathy to be {i]told[/i] to him nine times out of ten. That did nothing to change the fact that Gabriel knew and James felt guilty. “Remind him that there are plenty of good people who are also metas. It’s the only way to teach him to differentiate between acts and inherent characteristics.” Most rapists were men; most men weren’t rapists.

[Dr. James Campbell]

Holidays had always been a Big. Freaking. Deal. at his house, particularly Christmas and the Fourth of July. Those were the times when everyone came home to eat together. There were kids running around in the backyard and Basky, the latest of his mother's mutts from the pound, begging for scraps in the kitchen. And there was arguments with Ben about politics and games of Scrabble where he and Harriet would cheat ruthlessly and then once his brother and sisters and their families have gone home for the night (half-hour away or less) there was dishes to be done, and then everyone was just too tired to do anything but fall into bed.

Chase had brought up the possibility of just not going this year, and while the idea had seemed appealing, James had argued him down. First and foremost, Niko hadn't met any of the extended family, including his foster sister. There weren't many young kids around Hammel, and so he wanted to see Niko getting a chance to be with kids his own age a bit more. (With about half the cousins older than him and the other half younger, he'd fit right in.) It also helped that after admitting to his mother that there had been an accident at work, it was good to see her and prove that he was okay, really. (She didn't buy it, but had chosen not to say anything.)

James desperately wanted to go back to normal, but being with his family in July had been a little overwhelming. He'd spent more time than usual sitting out of the action, and had more than once excused himself to go lie down in his old bedroom, removing himself from the hectic energy he'd reveled in the year before.

"I don't like waiting." James finally said, after thinking for a while. The holidays were months away, and though it sounded like Sean thought he would be at least somewhat better equipped to handle them then, he wasn't so sure. "I need a plan, or a goal, or something." Anything to prove that he wasn't just sitting there, feeling sorry for himself.

The thin, reedy man did his best not to meet the psychiatrist's eyes. There was little the older man could say that could stop James from feeling guilty about what had happened. "I know... but I still don't know what to tell him about what happened to me. How much is too much? I never had to give these kinds of talks to Ginny; she always went to Lucy for them." He frowned, then added, "My mom, the rest of my family know something is wrong, but I didn't tell them. I don't want them involved." Plus, most of his siblings' kids were still young enough to not know if they were meta. He didn't want his family to be resistant to sending them to Hammel. Despite everything, he still felt safest there.

"I don't know what's happening to try and find the guy, but I want to help. I just want my family safe." James wasn't thinking revenge, just any way to prevent his family from being targeted.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Before meeting James, the telepath had never encountered anyone who cared as much about holidays who was older than twelve. Holidays were for children in his family, and the other gatherings were an excuse to drink and see people you hadn’t seen in a few months. Due to the strain within his own family due to his politics and “life style”, and since completely losing his faith decades ago, holidays had come to mean less and less to the psychiatrist. At this point, he didn’t even bother to keep up appearances, as he had been essentially banished from holidays at his sister’s house. For someone who cared about holidays as much as the Campbells did, the thought could easily become paralyzing, and the loss was more keenly felt. And a close-knit family was more likely to realize that something was amiss.

Sean understood that James wanted to return to normal sooner rather than later; that was a natural impulse. Unfortunately, it was also counterproductive, as rushing would only burden him more. That was the cruelty inherent in recovering from trauma. The traumatic event did more than scar a man once; it continued throughout recovery and bled over into every aspect of life. “I realize that you don’t like waiting, but here’s the thing about goals that involve how you feel: they’re usually counterproductive, because healing isn’t a race. You can do more to hurt yourself by setting a goal and not meeting it. But if you want to do something to lessen the waiting, why not make a list of goals but don’t attach a timeline?” It was a start, and it could potentially help James feel less restless.

“Giving explicit details is definitely too much,” Sean offered him by way of advice. He took another bite of pastry and then a sip of tea. “Try to stick to vague concepts and temper them with reminders about how he shouldn’t be paranoid, merely careful. Typical stranger danger warnings.” Of course, Sean only had experience through the school rather than life experience, and most of the students had already received those lectures before coming to the school. He nodded sympathetically at the other man’s declaration that he didn’t want his family involved; Sean wouldn’t either, were their positions reversed. “Don’t get them involved. Keep it vague; it sounds like you’re doing fine on that end.”

This put Sean in an incredibly uncomfortable position. He had agreed, for Chase’s sake, to remain mum about their plans to track Gabriel – to a point. The telepath would not go out of his way to tell James, but he also wouldn’t lie to a question asked point blank. Fortunately, James hadn’t asked explicitly but had instead made a vague request for information and an offer for help. This he could direct elsewhere for the present time. “The police still have an open file, although the Board should look into that and see how the investigation is going.” He understood the other man’s desire to do something and admittedly, with James’s thoughts, he was more constructive than his husband. “But you have a good eye for detail. Would it help if you kept an eye on the news for anything that might set off alarm bells? And as always, keeping an eye on potential recruits; you know how we’ve had to keep our eyes out recently.” Gabriel’s knowledge of the James’s files made that a necessity.

[Dr. James Campbell]

Though the Campbells (and the Pevensies) had always been liberal, James had dealt with a lot of the same differences with his family that Sean had. But his parents were of the same generation as Sean (only four or five years older than him) and had always, always welcomed him back home. And, well, they'd always been a tight-knit group, and his siblings had all settled down in the same area, less than an hour away from where they'd grown up. So when James, who had always been the one who was away--first college, then Hammel, then settling in Vermont--came home, he was welcomed back as the prodigal son. And holidays were a big part of that.

"I'd rather have unrealistic goals than other things, though." Yes, everything Sean was saying was making perfect sense. He got that, on a conscious level. But he had still found himself reverting to childhood habits of making up "rules" to govern the universe. Mostly it was locks this time. If he locked and unlocked doors the right way, the right amount of times, his family would be safe. Logically, he knew that checking the lock on the door five times before bed wouldn't actually keep them any safer. And he knew that no matter how much he washed his hands, he wouldn't be able to wash away what they'd been made to do.

Of course, he'd been trying to hide his backsliding to old habits from Chase. The lock compulsions he thought he was doing okay on, but there was no way his husband was going to miss his hands being scrubbed raw. The blond man had only said, "It's okay, Jamie," then brought him the aloe lotion they kept on hand. As he'd rubbed it in, Chase had talked about the Mets and his students and pretty much everything else he could think of that wasn't about how it had been over a year since the last time he'd done that.

"Would I have to show it to you?" Granted, the hardest things on his list, the most important goals, Sean would probably pick up on anyway. It wasn't as if James had any shields up to keep his thoughts to himself. But the illusion of keeping it a private list might keep the pressure off.

He nodded at Sean's advice for talking to Niko. Eventually, that was probably what he and Chase would have done on their own. And at least they knew they were doing it right, keeping their extended families out of the loop.

James sipped his coffee, trying not to think about how he found the way Sean phrased it a little patronizing. Yes, he had an eye for detail. He was also trained to track down meta-humans. His job often revolved news reports and paper trails. The only reason he hadn't thrown himself into research already was because he'd been putting so much effort into not thinking about it, under any circumstances. "I can do that." He said simply, and now he planned on it.

At least it was something. James had no desire to confront the evil bastard who had made his life come to a screeching halt. He wasn't stupid; he knew exactly how that would turn out.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

“I trust you to know your limits, and to try to keep them in mind,” Sean told him, which was meeting him halfway. He didn’t want him to put too much pressure on himself, but the other man’s OCD made him a special case when it came to trauma. Not every sign of progress applied to him, and by that token, not every sign of backslide would apply to him either. Sean realized this; it was a difficult line to walk.

Although the psychiatrist wanted James to continue meeting with him so he could monitor his emotional wellbeing – as well as keep an eye on him for any additional psychic fallout – he had no desire to confine the other man. He also didn’t want him to feel further violated by being scrutinized for every action; he was entitled to his secrets, to his small personal desires, values, and goals. The psychiatrist would only need to know if and when the list began to inhibit his progress. Thus he took another sip of tea and shook his head. “No, you wouldn’t. It’s yours to keep and edit as you please.”

James was handling the matters with Niko more rationally than Chase had, although this was several weeks later and James was in a different position than Chase had been. Regardless, Sean was grateful for the rationality, and he hoped that everything worked out to the extent that it could. Niko had learned to trust his foster parents, and it was likely then that he would trust their judgment and come to understand that a single person wasn’t representative of a group of people. Sean had spent his entire life trying to help people make that distinction.

The telepath reached for his pastry to tear off another bit and eat it. He hadn’t meant to patronize James; he respected the other man’s job, his training, and his abilities. However, in an effort to not put pressure on the younger man, he had wanted to steer clear of descriptions which involved duty. Duty created obligations which also ran the risk of assigning more guilt and a sense of failure to the other man, as though his training and position should have helped him stop Gabriel before, or that he might spend more time obsessing over his files and the fact that he had been chosen and victimized because of his job. Ability could be validating, could help with his self esteem. And since James had agreed to do so, Sean hoped he wouldn’t run himself ragged in the process; he also had something to add. “If you see anything flare up in politics this fall – anything violent, not just a meta issue – could you pass that on?” Experience watching the news had taught the telepath that Gabriel liked to keep a hand in many areas.

Sean was grateful that James was aware of himself; if he had to handle both of his friends rushing off like that, the lot of them were doomed for certain.

[Dr. James Campbell]

James nodded. Yes, he knew his limits. He'd been painfully aware of what his mind would and would not let him do for years. But the point of this was to fix that, right? At least he would be back to his regular levels of anxiety, and capable of letting Chase help him.

First on his list was to stop flinching away from Chase. They had always been physically affectionate, so his new-found edginess at being touched bothered them. When he shied away from a hug, he could feel Chase stiffen as well. Sometimes he let him go, and sometimes he just stood there and waited for James to relax. He didn't know which one hurt more. Four years together, almost a full year married, and it felt wrong to push him away like this.

Next was talking to Nikki about this mess. He knew he would have to do it sometime, and that the boy had probably picked up on more of the stress in the house than he had said.

And then, after those, were all of the smaller things. The locking compulsions. The lack of sleep. If he could just fix the stuff with his family, the rest he didn't mind taking his time on. (It wasn't as if bad sleeping habits were unusual for him.)

Sean was right in his attempt to avoid connecting duty to James' goals. He already felt that he was failing as a husband, and as a father. If he wasn't able to provide new information...well, he didn't need the added pressure of failing at that, too.

James took another sip of his coffee, ignoring the pastries again. He was still nervous, and still didn't feel like eating anything. Instead he listened to Sean's request, nodding. Though he knew some things about politics--try being related to Harri and not learning--he'd never really followed them, outside of laws and campaigns regarding metas and their rights. But his sister kept him informed on the rest, enough so he could deadpan, "Please tell me he's not responsible for the Tea Parties." Bad joke? Maybe. But that would just be one thing too much.

It probably had something to do with his disconnection from his family, but James hadn't picked up on what Chase had been up to. He'd joked a few weeks ago that if they didn't find the bastard soon, the blond man would go vigilante. But it had been a joke. It hadn't even crossed his mind that his attempt to be lighthearted to Morgan was even slightly true.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

The psychiatrist was long-used to sleeping problems; he suffered from insomnia himself, and he had his bouts of depression. If it continued to upset the younger man, he would offer to write him a prescription for sleeping pills, just to give him a break. But he wouldn’t at the moment, since he was pretending not to overhear the other man’s thoughts; it was a fiction, but a necessary one for James’s sense of privacy.

Sean had been nervous after the attack as well, but the weeks had passed and he had calmed. Not to the extent of growing complacent, but to the point of being able to enjoy pastry and tea again; besides, the brew was good for his peace of mind. And with the risk to the school and with the upcoming political season, the psychiatrist needed all of the peace of mind he could induce. The primaries were on their way, which meant that Josh would be rankled soon. Politics brought his thoughts full circle, back to where Gabriel’s influence intersected the county and the world at large. “He’s not,” the psychiatrist told him. The Tea Parties weren’t spontaneous, but their creation was well-documented and inevitable in some ways. “Those are just an airing of the country’s pent up frustration and hatred. They’re also too amorphous and widespread. An assassination attempt, a bit of domestic terrorism, a politician changing his vote inexplicably at the last minute, those are what to look for.”

The quicker they found Gabriel, the safer everyone would be. Sean still held out hope for the authorities getting involved, but if not...well, he and Chase would be able to intervene to what limited extent possible. Months ago, he never would have envisioned himself involved in taking any sort of justice into his own hands. Protests, petitions, and grass roots initiatives were his experience, not this.

“I’d like to keep having sessions.” That had been implied earlier, but he wanted it on the record, so that James wouldn’t feel surprised when he requested another next week. “Nothing too formal, nothing too time-consuming, but I want to help you with the road ahead. And as you know, everything is confidential."

[Dr. James Campbell]

James had sleeping pills. They were kept in their plastic bottle in one of the inside pockets of his carry-on bag. He hated how they made him feel, so restricted his use of them to when he was forced to fly cross-country. (In addition to several other fears and anxieties, he was afraid of flying. But his job had depended on it, so it was the one thing where he just sucked it up and took the sleeping pills, and most of the time he was fine.) Anyway, it would take a bit more than a few weeks of scattered insomnia to get him taking them on a regular basis again.

Okay, all it would probably take is Chase asking him. He was stubborn, but he felt guilty enough about what he was putting his family through that he would do this. (Though it probably wasn't the healthiest mindset.)

James listened intently, nodding. It would be easy to be on the lookout for that, plus he could learn enough about what was going on to convince Harri--and therefore the rest of his family--that he was fine and didn't need assistance from the extended Campbell clan. He loved them too much to want them to have anything to do with this mess. "Yes. I'll do that."

When Sean said he wanted to continue the sessions, James nodded. He'd known that. He'd known that this wasn't going to be something where he could talk about it once and it would be fixed. Plus, he'd promised Chase that he would go. It wasn't explicitly stated between them, but they both knew it anyway. "So, it'll be once a week, or something?" Any more than that, and he was worried that anyone who knew he was in the psychiatrist's office so often might think he wasn't capable of doing his job.

He checked his watch, surprised at how much time had passed since he'd been hesitating outside the door. "I really should get back to work. Willow is trying to be sensitive around me, and the results are rather frightening." Again, James' humor left a little to be desired, but the fact that he was trying had to help, didn't it?

He pushed his still mostly-full cup of coffee back, away from him and said, "Thank you, Sean. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have waited this long."

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Sean sympathized with James’s plight when it came to sleep difficulty and when it came to the effects of sleeping pills. He kept them as a last resort, when his insomnia became crippling and his ability to work and function grew impaired. But the grogginess was impairment as well, which was why he viewed them as a balancing test; however, he appreciated having a bottle in his house, knowing that he could use them just in case. He also didn’t suffer from the same anxiety issues as James did, or from his OCD, and so his relationship with medication was different than the younger man’s was, doubly so since he was a medical professional. He wouldn’t push the issue, but should James desire a new prescription, he knew where to find the telepath.

“Thank you.” Sean was sincere in that; although he didn’t want James to overextend himself given his need to recover, he also appreciated any leads on finding Gabriel. Of course, it had to do with what he and Chase were planning behind closed doors, as well as a desire on behalf of the law-abiding community and upright citizen’s brigade to stop the puppeteer from hurting anyone else.

The psychiatrist appreciated that James wasn’t putting up a protest to continued sessions; they were best for his recovery, and he had already done himself a disservice by waiting this long to begin. Weekly sessions would be fine, as they would keep James from being crowded or constricted, but at the same time would give him the opportunity to work through the trauma on a schedule and would provide him with a feeling of consistency. “Once a week is fine. And if you need an additional one here and there, just to talk, you know I’m available.” He realized that the younger man needed to keep his privacy, which was why he offered, “If you want, they don’t have to be the same time every week. But that’s your choice.”

He nodded his understanding; although Sean hadn’t kept his eye on the clock, he was used to the passage of time in this office and knew how quickly it could move. The joke about Willow was better than his other attempts at humor, and so the psychiatrist cracked a small smile. “I’m glad you came in.” He said that sincerely; he was quite glad that his friend was trying to work through this now. And no, he shouldn’t have waited, but the telepath wouldn’t lay the guilt on, as it would be counterproductive and he didn’t need to bask in being right. He wished he hadn’t been right. “We’ll just have to make up for lost time. Try to have a good afternoon.”