ain't gonna play nice

[sofentheblow]

WHO: DOCTORS KARLA SOFEN and FREDERICK CHILTON
WHERE: karla's office
WHEN: may 20!
WHAT: chilton fulfilling his mandatory therapy, officially
WARNINGS: discussions of mental health. if there's no unethical practice in here we're doing our job wrong. violence?? fingers crossed



[ Karla's office wasn't really decorated until last week. Not aside from the stiff, white leather couch she'd found and brought in, mostly as a joke with herself (the extent of the joke being seating arrangement in a therapist's office that does the opposite of set patients at ease).

She'd never pretended to herself that genuine interest in helping people process their issues had been a factor in her selection of vocation, after all. Family counseling (said to herself, in her mind, accompanied by a silent groan -- family counseling) in Heropa's no exception.

Last week, though, was when she'd gotten the word about the new patient she'd be taking on. Several bristly prior interactions with Doctor Frederick Chilton left her fairly certain there'd be scrutiny, on the wrong side of the notepad, over her failure to fill in the space aside from the provided furnishings.

A side effect of spending most of her adult life moving from place to assigned place, many of them glorified (and not so glorified) imprisonments: Karla's never really developed the art of making a space her own. So she'd taken the initial impulse, that joke of an unwelcoming couch, and run with it. Her office is now decked out nearly entirely in white, the accents in chrome and black. The effect is a little unsettling. It's not unintentional.

She sits back now, across from her 11:00 appointment, more than a little smarm behind her relaxed smile. ]

Frederick. Tell me about why you're here.

[ She has the vague summary their superiors gave her with his file, of course, so she knows approximately about the event that got him sent here. But he likely doesn't know for certain that she's aware he's here on orders. The prompt, posed as if he were here of his own volition.

A feeler, really, to see if he’ll play along with the pretense that he is. ]

Comments

[sofentheblow]

[ She leans forward, too, resolutely not smiling. Resolutely not demonstrating any degree of gratification of this moment she's... well, forcing, more than allowing, to be stretched. She keeps her voice low, almost conspiratorial -- playing with this as a shared moment emphasizes nicely how much it isn't. ]

We're not here for me.

[ And immediately she sits back, her entire body language the equivalent of a cleared throat: posture straightened, pen picked up again, expression back to a default, welcoming half-smile. The clash, the shift in atmosphere is almost violent, held up against the near intimacy of a few seconds earlier. ]

I'd like to see you processing this in a way that's healthy. [ Is what someone entirely other than Karla might mean, here, if they said it. ]

You said you didn't -- [ A brief pause, as if recalling. ] redirect, compartmentalize, repress -- did I get all of it?

How have you dealt with it? Specifically.

[slightlyoffchilt]

[He fit a sneer to his face, which flashed a brief show of teeth. A defensive expression, a claim of territory; Chilton was indeed feeling territorial, but over his own psychology. The way Karla prodded could leave marks and Chilton could appreciate the force.

But he wasn't interested in courting collateral damage.]

I have processed the event, emotionally.

[He sat up straighter, mirroring her sharp bodily shift.]

Through integration. The impact of such trauma is lessened when incorporated as a normal memory -- Doctor Sofen, I am fine.

[He narrowed his eyes, before blinking -- once -- and the eased the electric stare to glance around the room. Her sense of minimalism was fashionable, and devoid of easy weakness. Clean, sharp, chic, and defensive. There was no penetrating her personal ticks through the environment; Karla had gone to lengths to make it smoothly impersonal.

It was a stage, to showcase her patients. Not an office.]

The gory details are left to your imagination.

[Chilton said in a way that implicated how he had no doubt over her proclivity to imagine him in pain.]

[sofentheblow]

[ "I am fine." How often does the belligerent insistence that one is fine offer up much the same cue as a restaurant with "Gourmet" in its title? He can assert he's fine however frantically he'd like; it's giving the glaringly opposite impression.

Karla watches him burn through his process -- watching Karla, assessing her office, returning to thrust insinuations at her. She allows her head to rock slightly, in the sort of demi-nod that says: I am drawing some conclusions here. The final nod's more decisive, and she stands, holding her pen and notepad to her side, smoothing the wrinkles from her skirt (black and slate grey tweed, pencil, lightweight wool, incidentally -- although if we're being technical it's all "molecule play, thanks space rocks"). She takes off the glasses she didn't need in the first place and sets them aside. ]

Doctor Chilton. I understand that you don't believe you should be here, but in your first ten minutes in my office you've been hostile, dodged questions and implied repeatedly that I might be somehow entertained by your trauma. [ Well, he could hardly know, given the scope of their interactions thus far. ] You have to be aware I can't in good conscience [ Ha. ] sign you off on the basis of a visit like this.

Since you are this hellbent on avoiding any meaningful and exploratory discussion in favor of selling me on how put together you are, I suggest you go home, polish your technique and we reschedule so you can try again. What you're doing now is frankly insulting.

[ Not the implications of schadenfreude on her part, the insult to her intelligence.

She gestures to the door. It's not so much a bluff as a call of what she's determined is his. Her expression's calm, if a little intense and focused in the way she stares him down, and there are no tangible cues that her projected victory here's as satisfying as it is.

No tangible ones. Her eyes might flicker once or twice, though. ]

[slightlyoffchilt]

Insulting?

[His eyes widened at the accusation -- his mouth, already framing disgust and distaste, already prescient with distress -- were the first (and thus far only) exhibitions announced on his face. Her denial of the one thing he wanted from her boiled along his skin, raising pinpricks of hair; he was a tomcat cornered, and ready to hiss back. Chilton sat up straighter, his spine a flagpole prepared to lurch territorial claim, but he refrained from leaping out of his chair.

Decorum was still part of the game.]

Insulting? Surely no more insulting that your psychiatric fumbling, Doctor Sofen? Cutting corners to my insight, hoping to provoke me -- with what? Your soaking wet superiority complex?

[At that phrase, he leaned forward, dropping his tone.]

Or -- shall we draw the curtain? Relieve the facade? It's really the inferiority complex that stimulates narcissism, isn't it? What clawed into your self-esteem, I wonder? Any of those programs you were forced through, back home?

[Karla's clear enjoyment of her situational power and her reluctance to respect Chilton's boundaries mirrored so easily many of his peers in the profession. As Hannibal said about psychiatrists (to include Chilton himself): so many had personality deficiencies. Overcompensation was a common balm for insecurity.]

While normally I would be delighted at the brevity. [He glanced at his watch, but only for effect. The second-long reliance on a prop concluded with an arched eyebrow shot back to Karla.] If you can't penetrate a few glossed deflections, Doctor, then it isn't my technique that requires polishing.

[Accusation met with accusation.]

[sofentheblow]

[ Oh.

He's struck too hard and for the most part missed, here, and Karla's more than content to watch the momentum carry him into a wall. Off a dock, maybe. There are a lot of cards tipped in an attack this blatant -- from where she's sitting, he's thrashing blindly in the hopes of hitting a sore spot. He'd referenced the programs back home, without, evidently, bothering to look into them beforehand, which implies his outburst was emotionally-driven, unplanned. That's useful.

As if she'd have brought up the Thunderbolts in her own network introduction if it'd been a sensitive point. As if she hasn't already explored the areas of accurate analysis he's managed to blunder into. She almost wishes he would dig a little more.

A normal response here might go something like: insist more firmly that Chilton leave. But the intensity with which he's just lashed out affords her more freedom not to affect a normal response. She laughs, a soft, short burst, shaking her head -- almost more an indication of mild, pleasant embarrassment than genuine indignance. A half-smile -- simmering satisfaction -- tugs at the corners of her mouth as she reclaims her seat.

She indulges in a brief fantasy -- something to the effect of fly him up a great many stories and watch him drop -- before she breaks the silence. ]

Not at all. I was under the impression that you wanted this to go as quickly and smoothly as possible, but since that's not quite the case, since you've made it clear you in fact want your --

[ If she's not going for infuriatingly calm, she's certainly getting there regardless. She closes and opens a fist, as if she's (again) trying to recall his words, though the desired effect is more their emphasis. ]

-- deflections penetrated. All you've given me with regards to your processing of the event have been some vague buzzwords, Frederick, so why don't you walk me through what that integration looked like.

An example.

[slightlyoffchilt]

[Chilton outright rolled his eyes. It was convenient for him, that Karla so deeply misunderstood his personality, his procedure. She had none of the insight of Danger (who observed so acutely), nor the precision of Abel Gideon (with his surgical ability to target weakness). It was as convenient as it was frustrating -- his references weren't for a lack of research, they were to provoke Karla into offering her perspective. He suspected a few personality disorders, and much of that hinged on her perception of events, on her self-awareness -- the latter of which she seemed to lack deeply.

She appeared to take his words for literal content, not once thinking about why Chilton would toss any information her way. While he made no effort to hide his opinion of her (hence, his emotion), his game otherwise had been breadcrumming and smoked mirrors; she had picked up on neither.

The emotion that stimulated was both sinking and glowing: He was subject to an inferior psychiatrist. And one prone to emotional strikes, evidently; he arched an eyebrow when she laughed, the burst brief and abrupt. The response was inappropriate, born out of missing restraint. Karla, he saw, tried very hard to smooth a veneer over her true self. The smug calmness was uneven, like rouge smudged over a cheek in haste.]

You want me to do the legwork for you.

[That's such lazy method, Karla, he nearly said -- but the phrasing reminded him too much of Will Graham, and that was a distasteful comparison. Will Graham was perplexing, psychologically, to Chilton -- but he was the only one. Chilton had profiled Hannibal correctly (but projected it incorrectly, upon Will's visage), he had manipulated Abel Gideon aptly. He had risen to the heights of Chief of Staff -- his ivory tower education had served him well.

And it had all brought him to this moment, sitting across from Karla Sofen, beginning to court boredom and questioning why his endeavors had brought him here.]

[sofentheblow]

[ Karla doesn’t frown, but only barely. Her proddings are getting her some reaction, but Chilton’s not going where she’s aiming him. He’s barely finished speaking before it hits her, hard. She’s misread.

Her stomach drops -- a rush of a sick, sinking feeling that comes from realizing, all at once and too late, that she’s underestimated an opponent. Not a feeling she’s experienced in quite a while -- is she that good, or have years of wielding nothing but the blunt objects that were her so-called teammates rendered her one herself? Or, perhaps better put -- is he that good, or is this the result of her recent time spent intermittently locked away and taken out for use as a heavy hitter? That would, she knows, have likely made her less nimble in these things.

Or both. It doesn’t matter, not now, not really. What matters is the insult that’s taken place here: she has, for lack of a better or less mortifying term, been played. Karla Sofen may be abrasive, she may be untrustworthy, she may be generally reprehensible as a human being. These she’ll allow. But she does not allow herself to be steered -- controlled -- mentally, emotionally, to suit someone else’s aims.

Not without retribution.

Now, though, he’s claimed the upper ground. There’s really only one prudent way to attack an enemy uphill -- by surprise -- and there’s none of that to be had here and now.

So she’ll have to lose this round decisively. Decisively, not directly -- they’re not doing direct here, it wouldn’t fit and could be taken as further antagonism. Not what she wants. What she needs is a transparent retreat. An exit with her tail between her legs, an obviously bad excuse, a cowardly exit that looks like it’s trying to save face -- but, by the same token, one that can’t especially be argued.

Her intent set, the rest happens naturally, down to the calibrated mediocrity of her acting. Just bad enough to be clearly questionable -- and there’s his win. Not bad enough to merit reasonable dispute, in the retelling, should their superiors become involved. And there’s her retreat. A pained expression, as if surprised by something agonizing, springs to her face; she gently presses beside her eyes with thumb and first fingers. ]

God. [ Glancing at Chilton, half- distracted, half apologetically: ] Could this thing’s timing be worse? [ Really fighting through it. Sort of. Mostly. Acting! Her voice is low and strained. ] Migranes, I’ve been -- shit -- never got these until I came here, now they’re-- [ And now a wincing breath, another apologetic glance in Chilton’s direction. ]

I’m so sorry. We’re going to have to reschedule.

[slightlyoffchilt]

A migraine. Oh, no. You poor dear.

[He was skeptical. But as Chilton, too, sought to escape this psychiatric embrace -- well, it wouldn't have suited his agenda to advocate details of her circumstance. What was there to inquire? The door lingered just behind, and it was the offering he sought. Really, headache or no, if it was all a motion to save face, then he could appreciate that.

Perhaps Karla Sofen had more grace that he would initially credit her with. Perhaps.

He exhaled, lightly, nodding in agreement of her headache's existence. Not dispute arose from his lips. The legitimacy of her claim remained unalloyed.]

You'll submit to my supervisor the details of our progress? Your evaluation? [Chilton leaned forward, before standing to his feet. He made sure he was the first to rise.] You'll inform her that I'm unadulterated by traumatic experience?

[He kept his eyes on her, appreciating the arduous theatrics. That pained expression! Those twitches of agony! How delicately (but firmly!) she pressed her thumb and finger beside her closed eyes.

He didn't lower his voice, or soften it. Just in case she really was belabored by a piercing migraine.]

I trust that you'll do what's best, for both of us.

[sofentheblow]

[ She will -- once he's left, once she's had a chance to begin the process of licking her wounds, of regrouping -- inform his superiors of nothing of the sort. The release form she hands in won't be a release in any sense of the word, but rather a recommendation that he be further observed.

Too little to go on from one short meeting. Bursts of aggression, apparent avoidance, repeated hints at paranoid delusions all certainly make it unreasonable to rule out PTSD at this early a juncture. All technically true -- all, as it turns out, apart from their context, really the responsible thing to do. Err on the side of caution.

It's as close to unassailable as she could hope for, really. He'll need to remain a patient for a while longer. ]