Regulus was sitting in a guest chair fidgeting with his rings. The soft sounds of the noise machine and a clock ticking filled the otherwise silent waiting room. He’d been in this exact spot literally hundreds of times and it never got less uncomfortable. He hated that everyone knew what he was here for, granted they were all here for the same thing, but still. Getting in the mindset for a session definitely didn’t help, he felt like a sitting duck, like all his insecurities were spelled out over his head in big neon letters for anyone to see and pick apart. He’d been waiting for ever (fifteen minutes max, and he arrived ten minutes early), and the sound of the clock ticking was starting to make him itch. He was about to get up and go to the bathroom just to get away from the ticking, when finally-
“Regulus, you can come back now”. His therapist called out.
Regulus made his way to get up as another patient was shuffling out. They’d met a few times in group therapy sessions, the guy's name was Barty. He had a face full of piercings,tattoos covering both arms, and his hair was dyed green at the ends. Based of what Regulus knew of him from group therapy he seemed pretty cool, fucking insane, but cool (and who was Regulus to judge?). They both did an awkward wave when they met at the entrance to the office, and Barty went on his way.
“Hello, Regulus” his therapist Minerva greeted as he made his way into her office and the comfortable loveseat he knew was waiting for him. Minerva was a lovely woman. No matter how many times he’d snapped at her, broke down crying, or just zoned out completely, Minerva always coaxed him back gently, and never acted like he was crazy. He’d try to tell her once, he was certifiably insane and should probably be institutionalized.
“You’re not crazy Regulus, these are normal reactions to the type of trauma you’ve experienced.” She tried to meet his eyes with a firm gaze, but he refused to look at her and scoffed. “Regulus, you are not crazy, look at me please.” He finally met her eyes, her gaze was soft and she smiled sympathetically. “You’re not crazy. You are a victim of abuse and it’s completely normal to have the thought processes you do after what you’ve experienced. Is it healthy? Not entirely, and it’s probably going to be pretty difficult and take a while to change that, but that’s what I’m here to help you do.” She sat back in her chair and readied her pen again, smirking now that he had calmed, “Besides if you actually needed to be institutionalized, I'm legally required to let you know. Now let’s talk about why you think you’re ‘crazy’.”
That had been at one of their earlier sessions and since then Regulus had been able to tell her confidently and mostly truthfully “No, I am not crazy, just working through some stuff”. She also got him to talk a lot about his feelings and why he was feeling them the way he did.
The woman was a miracle worker truly.
“Hello Minerva, how are you this week? He greeted her as he made himself comfortable on the cushiony loveseat.
“I’m doing well. You’ll be happy to know that the kitten I adopted has made a full recovery.” He smiled at that. “Now, what have you got going on this week?”.
After visiting her office so many times it started to feel comfortable, safe even, but today the sitting duck feeling followed him from the waiting room and he started fidgeting with his rings again. “Well, James took me out on a date last weekend”.
“Oh? How was it?”
He turned to look at the painting she had hung up on her wall. It was a copy of the Van Gogh Red poppies painting, “It was lovely”, he sighed, rubbing his hand over his face.
“So what’s the issue, I thought things with you and James were going well?”
Things were going well. That was the problem.
He and James had been together five years now. They shared a lovely apartment, and James was a big reason why Regulus had started going to therapy in the first place. After helping Regulus through several panic attacks and one near mental breakdown, it was gently suggested that maybe he try therapy.
The date they had been on had been lovely, perfect even. James had taken him to one of those pottery painting places and they made mugs for each other. James spent a long time painting little stars and constellations on his, while Regulus painted a sun on the one for James. They then went to Regulus’ favorite restaurant and James let him pick both their entrees so they could share ‘You know I’m not picky Reg, just pick whatever you wanna try’, It was perfect.
“They are going well, so well.” He played with his rings some more and muttered out, “almost too well.” He felt nervous saying all this out loud and his face was definitely turning red.
Minerva jotted some notes down and looked back up to him, “Can you explain what you mean by that?”
“Well it's just, I feel safe with him.”
Her face didn’t give anything away when she spoke, “And as we’ve previously established that’s a good thing, so again what's the issue?”
Ugh. Thinking about his feelings and trying to articulate them was so hard.
“Well, our anniversary is coming up in a couple weeks, we’ll have been together six years”. He was still fidgeting with his rings and Minerva motioned for him to continue. “It’s coming up and I’m just kind of nervous I guess”. She gave him time to process while he figured out exactly what he wanted to say. “It’s just-” oh god he was gonna cry.
Blinking back tears and clearing his throat he continued, “I love him. A lot, like I think I would marry him if he asked, and six years is a long time.” She nodded. “Most of my other relationships would have imploded by this point, and not just the romantic ones, and it was a big risk for me to even enter a relationship with him.” It was a huge risk, but he's so glad he took it, but sometimes the hurt from his past lingered. The echoes of pain reverberated at the most inconvenient times. “Letting people love me always felt like letting them point a gun at me. I knew, I knew it would hurt, but I let them point the gun at me anyway, and hell, I'd even pull the trigger.” Tears were starting to fall freely now, which was so frustrating. They’d talked about this at length over multiple sessions, people leaving him, or why his relationships previous to James ended terribly, and it had stopped impacting him this heavily. He tried to calm his breathing to avoid full on sobbing before continuing, “And with James, it’s like I'm opening myself back up to that, only I know he’d never hurt me, so it’s just a little overwhelming I guess. Almost like I'm preparing to take the hit, but at the same time knowing it’s not going to come.” He sniffled a little, but the tears were receding now that he’d gotten the biggest part of what he was feeling out. “I love James, and I love being with him, and I’m so happy now, I think I’m just feeling a little bit sad for the younger me.” He began wiping his eyes with his sleeve.
Minerva handed him a tissue, “It’s okay to be a bit overwhelmed, Regulus. Sometimes being happy can be difficult when you don’t have much practice just letting yourself be”. She sat her pen down from where she'd been taking notes while he was talking. “I think you should talk to James a bit about how you’re feeling, especially with your anniversary coming up. It might help to get some reassurance from him, but mostly I want you to try and just let yourself be. Try to be present, and when you start to get overwhelmed, remind yourself why you can feel safe now. You’ve been working with me for several years now Regulus, you’ve done your homework and really put in the work.” She smiled at him, her eyes a bit watery, “You’ve been through so much Regulus, and you’ve come so far, you deserve to be happy.”
God. His eyes were watering again, this was so gross.
He cleared his throat, trying to fight off the lump forming, “I’ll try and remember that”.
She was still smiling at him, “Good, now how was the rest of your week?”
They continued the rest of the session with less tear inducing topics, and soon the forty five minutes were up.
“Alright well that's all the time we have for today, i'll see you next week Regulus”
He stood to make his way out, “Thank you Minerva, see you next week.”
Feeling a lot lighter he made his way home to the apartment he and James shared.
He unlocked the door and toed his shoes off. “James?” he called out into the apartment. No answer, but he could hear The Kinks playing from the kitchen, so he followed the sound and the smell of something baking in the oven.
He found James with his back turned to him, singing as he was mixing what looked like cookie dough in a bowl, “The only time I feel alright is by your side, boy I want to be with you all of the time” James’ singing voice was terrible, which always amused Regulus, and he let out a giggle at the lyric change.
James finally noticed Regulus was home at the sound of him giggling. In lieu of a greeting he just waggled his eyebrows and moved closer, using the spoon that was covered in what was indeed cookie dough as a microphone, and finished out the song serenading Regulus. “I believe you and me last forever, Oh yeah all day and night time yours, leave me never, boy I want to be with you all of the time”. Regulus was full on laughing now. As the song finished James, careful to protect Regulus from any rogue cookie dough, wrapped him up in a hug pressing a kiss to the top of his head. “Hello love, good session?”
Regulus breathed in the smell of James enjoying the feeling of being wrapped up in him, “Yeah it was good, we talked about you some.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, just about our anniversary coming up, how it might dredge up some old feelings, passage of time and all that.”
James squeezed him a bit tighter, and pressed another kiss to his head. “I’m sorry, I wish you hadn't had to go through all that”.
Regulus just nuzzled closer into James’ neck, “S’not your fault. And I’m glad we met when we did, you’ve helped with a lot of it. I don’t thank you enough for it".
“You don’t have to thank me Reg, when I’m struggling you help get me through stuff. I never would’ve finished my degree if you weren’t for you” James started swaying them slightly to the beat of the next song playing.
Regulus hummed in agreement. Towards the end of James finishing up his degree, he had needed to be nearly constantly reminded to take breaks and eat, and was one more reading assignment away from a full on breakdown. “Still, thank you” Regulus turned his head up to place a peck to James’ lips, “I love you”.
James kissed him for real before pulling back, holding his face in his hands, “I love you too”, James smiled at him with an incredibly loving look in his eyes, “And! I made cookies!”
Regulus grinned, he’d admittedly been distracted by the serenade, but the smell really was lovely, “Chocolate chip?”
“Chocolate chip.” James kissed him again, before dragging him the rest of the way into the kitchen, where he helped finish the next batch of cookies.
Regulus couldn’t help laughing as now ABBA’s Voulez-Vous rang out and he was treated to another serenade, the smell of chocolate chip cookies filling their kitchen. He was the happiest he’d ever been. He was in love and it didn’t hurt at all.