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“You know, it breaks my heart a little when you do that, Dr. B.”
Good, Joan thinks fiercely, defiance sputtering around the foggy edges of her brain as she glares at the figure sprawled lazily in her chair. It’s getting easier to resist Damien’s pull, but it’s still difficult enough that any time she can needle or inconvenience him it still feels like a much-needed petty victory. On the outside, she tilts her head in polite interest. “When I do what?” God, she desperately wants to know how she’s bothering him so she can keep on doing it.
Damien starts to sneer at her faux-innocence until he realizes it’s not so false. “You really don’t even know you’re doing it, do you?” he asks, shaking his head.
She hates the arrogance and condescension almost as much as she hates the manipulation. “Apparently not,” she says coolly. “Why don’t you enlighten me?”
He smiles like he’s bested her in some game she wasn’t even playing. “You destroy things when I’m talking,” he says. He leans forward and puts his elbows on her desk – she’s asked him not to do that several times – and lets out a little puff of air, sending bits of shredded paper skittering across the surface. “Mostly you just tear paper, but you snapped a pencil once. And when someone’s brought you flowers, your desk looks like a wedding decoration by the time I leave.”
Damn. She does know she’s doing it, or at least she always realizes she’s been doing it once he’s gone, but she hadn’t expected him to notice. She’s normally very good at controlling her own stress reactions during sessions, but when all her mental energy is going towards keeping her conscious mind out of Damien’s grip she can’t do much about her subconscious. “We all have our little tics, Damien,” she says with apparent unconcern.
“Not your tidy little mind,” he says. “I’ve asked around. Not your other patients,” he adds with a roll of his eyes before she has time to react with anger. “But Sarah, the woman who cleans your office… everyone says you’re obsessively organized. Except when it comes to me, apparently, and suddenly you’re tearing the place apart.” He leans in again, with a false wounded look. “Do I really upset you that much?”
Joan takes a sharp, deep breath. “I don’t think ‘upset’ is the right word,” she says. “But you do present a great deal of difficulty for me.”
A snort. “‘Difficulty,’ really? That’s what you’re going with?” He tilts his head coyly. “C’mon, Dr. B. Tell me how you really feel.”
He means it. Joan can feel the pull, made harder to resist by her own desire to tell him off. “I like to think of myself as a calm and rational person,” she says. “But I have to admit –” and she does have to admit it; that’s the part she hates – “that something about you makes me want to commit extreme violence.”
It’s worth it to see Damien stunned for a moment, frozen as his universe rearranges itself to make room for the knowledge that little Joanie is more ruthless than he thought. It always takes people by surprise. She watches him scramble to cover his startled hurt in a layer of bravado. “And the gloves come off,” he drawls approvingly. “And all this time I thought you wanted to help me.”
“I do want to help you.” It’s what he’s telling her to say, but it’s also the truth. “But you’ve proven time and time again that you don’t actually want the help I’m giving you. As long as you continue to force these sessions on me I will continue to try to use them to make you recognize the harm you’re causing and find better ways to make yourself part of society. But if you continue to reject that…” She folds her hands and breathes deeply, keeping her voice quiet. “As you are now, and with little chance of changing, I truly believe this world would be safer without you in it.”
His mouth closes, and now the emotion he’s trying to hide is anger. “That’s not a good thing for a therapist to say.” It’s not, and she can’t believe she said it, even under his influence, but it’s still satisfying. “And it’s not how I want you to feel.”
Joan has to brace herself against his will, force herself not to apologize, but she’s riding high and unstoppable now. “You could never want anything as much as I want to protect the world from you, Damien.”
“So what’s stopping you?” he challenges, still in that cool, blasé voice. “If you want to hurt me so bad that even I can’t override it, then what’s keeping you from taking a swing at me right now?”
“I am.” Joan leans forward ever so slightly, allowing herself the luxury of savoring Damien’s reaction as her voice goes low and cold. She’s not sure if she’s a good person or not, but she knows she’s not as good as most people think she is, and sometimes it’s nice to remind others of that. “Do you really think you’re the only voice in my head telling me to do things I don’t want to do? The only reason I’m so good at resisting you is because I’ve had years of practice at resisting myself.” She lets that hang in the air for a moment before settling and regaining her composure. “You think you’re intimidating? Try being half as loud in my head as my own worse nature and then we’ll talk about whether or not you scare me.”
Damien goes completely still and silent, and for a moment she thinks she’s won. And then he leans back, sprawling casually in the chair again, and gives her a little smile, and says the most disturbing thing she could ever imagine hearing from him. “I knew there was a reason I liked you, Dr. B.”