Work Text:
Interrogation--
“Dr. Fox? Thanks for calling me back. My name is Dr. Charles Eppes. I’m not a real doctor. Rather I am a real doctor, multiple times over, but PhDs, not a medical doctor.”
“What can you do for me? Right, yeah. What would a Doctor of Mathematics be doing calling a Doctor of Psychology? Because that’s me, a Doctor of Mathematics, pretty well known actually. ‘Though a Doctor of Mathematics might call a Doctor of Psychology because there is some overlap, especially in the area of the brain. I’m very interested in cognitive emergence, for example. But I’m not calling you about that. I have a friend, a very good friend, who has an appointment with you next week for counseling and I needed to call you and make sure you were okay before then. See, he’s had some really bad experiences with counselors in his life and I don’t think that if it goes bad with you that he’ll be able to make himself find someone else.”
“Yeah, no pressure, sorry. So I’m calling to ask you some questions, if you can answer them. I’m not really sure how that works but I’m not gonna be asking you about a particular patient so it doesn’t violate the patient confidentiality, I believe.”
“Thanks, thanks for being willing to talk to me. Umm, first question, let’s see. Do you have any experience with working with ex-military?”
“Okay, good, right, that’s why the army counselor recommended you. Though he couldn’t get Colby out of his office fast enough once he found out— Umm, Federal law enforcement, any difficulties with that?”
“No, not if you’ve been in trouble with the Feds, that would have turned up in the background check.”
“Umm, yeah, I had my brother, who’s in the FBI, he’s actually Colby’s boss— Oh, Colby is my friend, Colby Granger. You have an appointment with him next week, right?”
“On Monday, yeah. So I had my brother run a background check on you to make sure that you were legitimate and didn’t have a history of, I don’t know, shooting your patients.”
“Yeah, we’re all kind off protective of Colby, he’s had some hard stuff happen to him. Not that he thinks he needs protecting … Oh great, giving you lots of psychology counseling stuff to chew on, aren’t I?”
“No, no, Colby knows I was gonna call you. His experience with the army counselor has made him really wary and that jerk decided he didn’t have PTSD anyway. Guess his nightmares aren’t bad enough and there’s some level of interpersonal and occupational functionality that Colby surpasses.”
“Yeah, that was Colby’s thought too, that they’re trying to save money. It’s probably just as well, since Colby … So, what is your thought on the topic of homosexuality? ‘Cause Colby’s not just my friend, he’s my boyfriend. We live together. Does that bother you?”
“I don’t know why it should, but it sure seems to bother lots of people, like Colby’s family and the Army and Jenny, who’s Nena’s mom, who’s our—Colby’s little girl. She’s five. Jenny actually threw rocks at me and broke our windows.”
“No, Jenny’s the mom, she threw the rocks, not Nena. Nena’s a sweet girl. We get her every other week.”
“Yeah, it’s great. So, do you think there’s a reason for people being gay other than that’s the way you are – I mean, this VA counselor told Colby that he was acting out against his family or trying to get back at his father or—”
“What did he say? He told the guy to go to Hell and—”
“Good? You think that’s good? It’s good that you think that’s good. That’s really … good.”
“Umm, no other questions that I can think of at the moment, but make sure that Colby talks to you about his father’s suicide. Oh, I probably shouldn’t have mentioned that, let Colby tell you. Don’t tell him I told you about it, okay?”
“Thanks. And Army stuff in Afghanistan and maybe other places. And just realizing he was gay recently.”
“Uh. Yeah. Last year I think, with somebody else. Co-worker, then my brother. Oh, crap, I shouldn’t have told you that. That’s probably serious counseling fodder. Though maybe the person you should be talking to about that is my brother, or me for that matter. But that’s another story, it’s Colby you need to be concerned with. He has bad nightmares and … daymares? Hallucinations – visual and auditory and olfactory hallucinations.”
“He smells perfume and human waste, apparently how it smells in Kabul. Make sure he tells you about that. He’s usually okay but not always, like when he got this letter about an old army buddy killing himself. That’s when I realized how much he really needs to get counseling. He didn’t want to talk about it, there’s a lot of stuff we don’t talk about. Though I’m trying to get better.”
“He did try to change the subject and make me forget but I made him promise to call the VA. Great idea that turned out to be. I’m really going to have to track down that guy and … ruin his credit rating or something.”
“Oh, no, sorry, that kind sounded like a threat, didn’t it? I didn’t mean that. Okay, maybe just a little. Colby is very important to me.”
“Okay, yeah, that was obvious, since I called you.”
“No, that’s about it. Unless there was something you wanted to ask me?”
“I guess from counseling I hope that Colby deals a little bit more with his father’s death, he’s never really dealt with it. In fact, he feels like he could have stopped it if he’d wanted to, so it’s his fault.”
“I agree, that’s bad. Maybe you can help him with that. The stupid counselor he saw right after the incident didn’t even figure that out. I mean, he was just a kid. And he’s a really good person, one of the real good guys. And maybe also from counseling, maybe a little more comfortable with his, umm, sexual orientation. He can be defensive, especially when it’s his family. They’re really conservative.”
“Yeah, yeah, lots for you to work on, but you can handle it, right?”
“I know, I know. No guarantees in counseling. It’s why I like Math, things aren’t so nebulous.”
“So you’ll call me if there’s anything I can do? Anything he needs, just tell me. You’ve got my number, right? Oh, of course you do, you called me back.”
“Okay, thanks for your time and answering questions and everything.”
“Yeah, yeah, I hope it works out too. Bye.”
Charlie blew out a deep breath and put a star next to Dr. Fox’s name.