start slow
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
Tick.
Elliot dug the bare quicks of his nails into the arm of the chair, feeling the cheap styrofoam meet exposed flesh. He’d been biting them so much, he didn’t want to suddenly look down in the middle of the meeting and see blood. Again.
You look coked up, rocking back and forth like that.
Shut up, Elliot pushed back. Not his fault he was so anxious.
Maybe it was.
He’d brought this all on himself, hadn’t he? Elliot could feel his skin prickle all over the surface, as if ants were crawling along his neck, up to his hair, down his shoulder and collarbone, itching and tingling and—
“I’ll see you next week, then.”
He looked up to see the previous patient leave, a nervous smile on her face. Elliot listened, hearing rustling of papers, a file drawer open and close, then padded foot steps to the door.
“Elliot?”
He shot out of his chair as if electrocuted, and turned to her, slapping a friendly smile on his face. “Hello.”
Krista frowned back at him. She looked worried, which, given their history… very much made sense. She gestured for him to enter, and he sat on the small couch along the opposite wall of her chair. This new office was small, cramped, and filled with cheap furniture. It felt temporary, or at least Krista seemed to hope so.
Rug’s worn. I think that’s blood—
Arright, stop. Let him think. Give him some space.
Elliot closed his eyes, breathed and counted to five, then opened his eyes again, steadying himself as he smiled at Krista. Shit. He probably came off as creepy like that. Fuck.
“It’s been… a bit. How have you been?”
“Alright.” Automatic response. Right. Therapy. Open up. “Well, not great, per se, but getting by.”
Krista looked vehemently at him. “Elliot. You sent an email that…definitely made me concerned. On top of… previous things.”
He remembered sending an email to set up an appointment, but not the details. Probably for the best.
“Krista, I— Okay, there’s… a lot to explain. The first thing is… something Mr. Robot would like to tell you.” He paused, hesitating at her slightly affronted look. “Well, a request. I don’t… remember the last… incident, as he called it. And he wants to keep it that way, at least for now. And he’s asking you to respect that.”
She hesitated, then nodded. “You don’t remember?”
“No, because—” Elliot rubbed his palms on the knees of his pressed jeans. He looked out the window, feeling it all slip away…
“Elliot?”
He looked back. “Sorry. I— I’m Elliot.”
“Yes…”
“No, you— You have never met me before. Not properly. The “Elliot” you knew was… someone else.”
“A different alter?”
“Yeah. I was dormant for… well, almost a year now. I’m the primary host, or at least I was for a while. Until he sort of… took over.”
“And… who is he, if not Elliot?”
“The Mastermind.”
A flash of something crossed over her face. Elliot expected fear, but if anything, it seemed more like amusement…
“Nice to meet you properly, then, Elliot.”
“Thanks, nice to meet you, too. Properly, that is.”
Krista seemed to make a mental note of that. “Alright. And now, you’re back. After about a year? How much do you remember?”
“...Bits and pieces. I think I came to the front once, maybe twice, but mostly I had no idea anything about reality. Ever since I’ve come back, it started coming back a bit, and Mr. Robot’s been helping me fill stuff in.”
“And how do you feel about being dormant?”
“I—” his breath caught. He choked slightly. Sniffed. Caught himself. “I hated it. I hate it now, the fact that I just. Was gone. From my own life. And no one knew. And now I’m back, and my whole life—” No. Don’t go there. Not now.
It’s okay. We’re here.
No. No going down that rabbit hole, not any time soon. “I might go back any second. Every time I want to space out, dissociate, let someone else take the wheel… I can’t. I won’t. I don’t want to lose my life again.”
“It’s alright, Elliot. Start slow. You said you don’t want to lose your life…”
Elliot paused. “Well, no. Not only mine. It belongs just as much to the others. But they choose to front or not front as much as they want. I… I didn’t even…”
Tell her.
No.
“Elliot?”
“There’s something to tell… I just hate everything. Sorry. Sorry, spaced out for a sec.”
“It’s alright, Elliot.”
He heard a scoff in his head. Sorry, he thought. But I need to be here. I don’t… I can’t…
“What was the hardest thing about coming back?”
“Sorry?”
He looked at Krista.
“You were gone for almost a year, as you said. Were you somewhere else? How was it different from reality?”
“I…”
…
“Elliot?”
…
“You don’t have to talk about that yet, Elliot. Just listen to my voice, you are alright. Elliot, you are here in my office, look around. Take into account what you feel, your body sitting in that chair, how the air feels, how—”
“Stop.”
“...Elliot?”
“I’m done today.”
“We can stop now, and you can leave if you would like, but I ask that you at least stay for the rest of the session. We don’t even have to talk about anything in particular.” Krista paused, letting them have room to breathe. “You don’t have to answer this; in fact, you don’t even have to respond, but I am curious as to who is currently here.”
A pause. “I—I’m not Elliot. Or the Mastermind. I won’t tell you my name, though.”
“Fair enough. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable; whoever you are, nice to speak with you. How has your day been?”
A blink. “We aren’t doing this. I’m not going to speak to some shrink—no offense. I understand that you believe your practice to be… legitimate.” A sneer. “But I won’t partake. I won’t stop this when it isn’t me, but if I have to be here… no.”
The look Krista was getting at that moment was one of a piercing gaze that was as sharp as a knife, slashing and searching Krista for any red flags or signs of danger. Krista sat there, letting herself be analyzed. The whole system had to know they could be safe, at the very least in this room. Not that that had always been true in the past…
“That’s perfectly alright. I’m never going to force you to talk in therapy, especially if you aren’t ready. I said we could start slow, in fact we don’t even have to dive in at all yet. Even just meeting is a start. I am glad you are just here with me, today.”
A few minutes passed, and the two fell into a surprisingly comfortable silence. While their searching gaze had never lessened, there seemed to be an additional understanding gained. A look, somewhere underneath the harsh exterior, that Krista felt was beginning to understand the lack of danger. The session came to a close, and they stood and walked to the door, before turning back to Krista.
“Your dress looks nice today.”
And then they were gone and out the door, leaving Krista behind to furiously scrawl everything into her notes.
A blur of the door, stairs, and a trail of murky carpet, and by the time the cold air hit him, Elliot was back. He looked to the side and spotted Darlene, leaning against a wall, smoking and typing away at her phone.
“Hey.”
She looked up at Elliot and lowered her sunglasses to study him. After being seemingly satisfied that he was alright enough, she grinned and threw an arm around him, stamping out her cigarette on the concrete.
“Hey, asshat, how’s it hangin’?”
“You didn’t have to pick me up from Krista’s.” He paused. “But thanks.”
“No problemo, dude. ‘Sides, I wanted to get some McDonalds with you. I’ve been craving their horrific fries all day.”
“I’d love to.”
They walked in silence to the nearest McDonalds, Darlene occasionally commenting on how rich this part of town was while Elliot listened. They got their fries, and Elliot leaned into the comfort of the worn red seats as Darlene began talking about what she’d done that day; cleaning, job applications, checking online forums for updates, watching the news…
And it struck Elliot that this, this, was perhaps the first moment of true normality he (or the entire system) had experienced in perhaps a year. Even when he took over fronting again, it had been hell trying to recover mentally and physically. Even out of the hospital, on days where the attacking migraines weren’t as horrific, and he could hold onto reality a little bit better, and he wasn’t paralyzed in terror and panic, and he wasn’t on the floor, a grieving mess, he was trying to deal with Darlene, figuring out where they could stay, where was safe, what on earth to do with the rest of their lives.
Mastermind, it seemed, hadn’t really planned on actually being able to live that long. Darlene, even if unintentionally, seemed to share that sentiment. Maybe that was why they had gotten along so well. All Elliot could do most of the time was worry about the future; those two only cared about the present.
But now, in the comfort of the McDonalds, the shitty cracked seats and sticky tables and greasy food, Darlene’s chatter, the AC blowing down the back of his neck; it still managed to be a moment of bliss for him. Alright, maybe not bliss… but definitely peace. And he could take that.
Start slow. A moment of peace. Not much, but… a start.