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lapacifidoraTitle: Introduction to Interpersonal Relations: I'll never see just what we're meant to be
Author: lapacifidora
Spoilers: Anything through 3.07 is fair game.
Rating/ Warnings: PG-14, for language
Word Count: 2,144
Disclaimers: Not mine. Although I think Dan Harmon knows this friend of mine and based Troy on her… Married to the Mob belongs to Jonathan Demme.
Author’s note: This was prompted by westwingwolf after Jeff’s slip in “Studies in Modern Movement” that he’s seeing a therapist. She wanted to ‘see’ Jeff’s therapy sessions when he was talking about Annie. Sadly, perhaps, I have a gutter brain. That’s when I turned to honey_pie1 for help. So, I guess you can blame all three of us.
This is also partially inspired by the inimitable Saber Shadow Kat. The title of this chapter is from New Order’s “Bizarre Love Triangle.”
***
“Mrs. Ann Emerson, widow of Richard ‘The Doctor’ Emerson. Formerly Ms. Annie Edison of Riverside and daughter of Tony and Barbara Edison. Graduate of Greendale Community College, five years of work as a physician’s assistant before taking the last two years off.” Special Agent Jeff Winger tossed the file down on the metal table in Interrogation Four as he came round the side of the table. “Why’d you take the last two years off, Ann? Trying to get yourself knocked up?” He sat down in the chair opposite the brunette, her back to the door, his to the two-way mirror taking up one whole wall.
“Go to hell.” Annie continued shredding the Styrofoam cup she’d drained of water 20 minutes ago, while she’d been sitting in the shadowy room alone.
“No, now don’t be mean.” Jeff leaned across the table and tapped the file between them with a finger. “Why you chose to take a substantial break right in the middle of a moderately successful streak is one of the few things I don’t know from this file.” He sat back in his chair and drew the file close to him, flipping it open and lifting up the pages, glancing at information he’d memorized weeks ago. “The only thing I can think is that old Dick-”
“Rich.” Annie interrupted quietly. “He went by Rich. He always said the only guy cool enough to pull off ‘Rick’ was Bogart and ‘Dick’ wasn’t classy enough for the kind of clientele with whom he worked.”
“‘With whom he worked’? Aren’t we proper?”
“Good grammar costs nothing.” Annie drew a shuddering breath and fingered a shred of Styrofoam before dropping it on top of the pile she’d left where the cup once sat.
“I suppose it doesn’t.” Jeff eyed her for a moment before tucking his chin and glancing surreptitiously behind him toward the two-way. “Now, to return to my point: The only thing I can imagine that would make you leave your job like that is that good old Rich put his foot down and said he wanted a little Richie Junior.”
“Because that’s all I’m good for?” Annie raised her head and met his gaze for the first time since he’d entered. Her face was pale and her eyes bloodshot, but her expression was grim and not a little disgusted. “I was a mob wife by proxy and all I could possibly be good for is popping out the next generation of hoodlums?” She barked out a sound that could have, under other circumstances, been a laugh. “Nice one, Mr. Smith.” She frowned. “That’s not even your real name, is it?”
“Why did you quit your job two years ago?”
“What’s your name?”
“Tell me why you quit your job. Did Rich make you do it? Was he forcing you to help him stitch up members of the Shaughnessy Crime Family?” Jeff sat forward, resting both elbows on the table top and propping his chin on his fists. “You know, if you were forced to help him, the judge will probably reduce your sentence.”
“Tell me what your real fucking name is.” Annie leaned forward, resting both her palms flat on the table and staring Jeff straight in the eye. “I already told you things I’d never said to no one, not even my own husband, and I didn’t even know your real name. You want me to say anything else, be straight with me.” She watched, her face scrunched in confusion, as Jeff sighed and dropped his fists, mimicking her stance.
She watched his face; he watched the 3 inches between his fingertips and hers where they lay on the tabletop.
“I was never anything but straight with you, Annie.”
“Bullshit.” She stretched her fingertips out and then curled them in, under her palms. “If you were never anything but honest, why couldn’t you tell me your real name?”
“Annie, this is a difficult situation.” Jeff raised one hand to pinch the bridge of his nose. “And we’re in an interrogation room.”
“Ha!” Annie shook her head, tapping a finger against the table as she listed off his trespasses. “You lied about being a plumber. You lied about living in my building. You lied about your name.” She closed her eyes and shook her head. “And even after we went out to that ridiculous bar-”
“It’s a perfectly good bar!”
“It’s ridiculous and pretentious, and their drinks are overpriced.” Annie opened her eyes and looked at him sadly. “And even after we went there and then you were so nice and you pulled that splinter out of my foot – and then you didn’t even bat an eye when Jenny freaking Adams Shaughnessy showed up and thought her Joey was hiding in my bathroom – an-and-” she paused and took another deep breath, looking off at the cinderblock wall on her right. “And you said all those nice things about how I shouldn’t worry about it because we’ve all been there…” She trailed off into silence broken only by the ticking of the industrial clock bolted to the wall above the door. She turned back to him. “You want to know anything else from me, you want me to help you, you need to be straight with me.”
“Winger.” Jeff swallowed and glanced down at the open file. “Jeffrey Tobias Winger, special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I work out of the Denver office, and I’m part of a special team that handles what organized crime there is in the southwest.” He shrugged when she looked at him askance. “It’s not exactly Boston or Chicago or Cleveland or Buffalo, now is it?”
“No.” Annie shook her head, her lips tilting up at one corner into the semblance of a smile. She blew out a breath that caught the strands of hair escaping from her messy bun and caused them to sway slightly. “I quit because a patient from the office where I worked, her elderly father moved in with her. Britta couldn’t handle taking care of him on her own and she couldn’t afford to hire a nurse, so I’d take the bus to her house and watch him while she was at work.” She flattened her palms out again, moving them slightly. Jeff could see the heat impressions they left against the cold metal bead into condensation and then fade. “It didn’t pay as well as Dr. Duncan’s office, but he understood, and it’s not like Leonard was going to live forever. Dr. Duncan said I could come back when Britta’s father passed on.” She closed her eyes for a moment, and then looked him square in the eye. “I never helped Rich. He never asked me to. He never forced me to. I didn’t even know what he did and who he did it for until the last couple years, and then only because he couldn’t hide it anymore. Then Joey had him killed because it turns out the d-bag was-” She paused and bit her lip as she thought. Finally she shrugged and blushed, tilting her head to one side. “He was, y’know, with Joey’s girl on the side.”
“He was an idiot.”
“You don’t need to tell me twice. I mean, I guess I kind of understand now how he got caught up in all this mess, but he could’ve gone to the police at any time. We could’ve gotten a deal for witness protection, right?”
“Not about that.” Jeff shook his head once, and then shook it again when Annie looked up at him in surprise. “I mean, yes, he was an idiot because he kept working for Colorado’s biggest crime boss he probably had enough information – even circumstantial stuff – to secure a place in WitSec for both of you.” He closed the file and leaned forward a little farther across the table. “But he was an idiot because of the girl.”
“Tell me about it.” Annie tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, catching the end of it with her finger and twirling it absently. “Of all the girls he had to go shtupping, I don’t understand why he had to pick her. Everyone knew Joey had been nice to her for months, even if Jenny refused to see it.”
“No, Annie, that’s not-” Jeff sighed and looked toward the ceiling, trying not to glance back over his shoulder at the two-way mirror again. He met her eyes and reached forward, laying his hand over hers as he continued quietly. “He’s an idiot because why would he go looking someplace else when he had you at home?”
“Oh.” Annie blinked slowly. “Oh.” Jeff watched as the corners of her mouth twitched up briefly before she took a deep breath through her nose and forced a blank expression onto her face. She glanced down at where his hand lay atop hers and turned hers over, pressing her palm to his and wrapping her fingers lightly around his wrist. She swallowed and licked her lips. “OK. What’s next?”
***
Dr. Sternin looked up at Jeff, who was shifting uncomfortably on the couch.
“And then what happened?”
“And then-” Jeff exhaled noisily. “And then I realized there was an orange cat skulking in the shadows and I got up to let it out, but when I opened the door, it was made of graham crackers and when I turned around, Annie and the interrogation room were gone. It was a disco and something by Abba or something was playing.” He shrugged. “And then I woke up.”
“Interesting.” Dr. Sternin made a note on her pad and leaned to one side, resting an elbow on the arm of her chair. “Both this dream and the one you told me about last week are surprisingly…detailed and elaborate.” She reached for her water glass and took a sip. “But they’re also less, well, less explicit than I would have imagined from a man in his prime.”
“Is that- is that bad?” Jeff sat up straighter, clasping his hands together in his lap. “Or good? Or, I don’t know, does it mean there’s something wrong with me?”
“No, no.” The doctor chuckled and shook her head. “It’s simply surprising. Tell me, Jeff, when was the last time you had sexual intercourse?”
“Um.” Jeff scratched the back of his neck. “Um.”
“It’s not a difficult question, Jeff, and I promise not to draw any conclusions from your answer.” Dr. Sternin pointed to her desk, where a copy of the DSM IV sat prominently, and held up her other hand as though swearing an oath. “You have my word of honor.”
“It’s, um, it’s been a while.” Jeff wiped his palms on his jeans and looked down at his left shoe. “It’s been about, um, six months.”
“Very interesting.”
“You said you weren’t going to draw any conclusions!”
“I’m not, Jeff.” She shook her head. “It’s simply interesting that you’ve gone all this time without physical stimulation of that sort and yet, when you’ve granted yourself permission to think about a woman to whom you are attracted, you have these fairly tame fantasies.”
“Is it time for me to go yet?” Jeff would never admit that his tone was whiny, but it certainly wasn’t one he’d use in public.
“Now, now.” Dr. Sternin smiled at him. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of. Fantasies are not always twisted and rated R. Sometimes, they are simply scenarios that allow us to experiment with feelings or actions our inhibitions prevent us from acting out in our conscious lives.” She set aside her notepad and pen and leaned forward, resting her elbows on her thighs and clasping her hands together. “It appears to me that you have more than just a mental block relating to Annie’s age. So, your homework for this week is to try to make more progress with the Annie in your head.”
“Are you-” Jeff swallowed hard as he stared at his therapist with wide eyes. “Please tell me you aren’t telling me to have a sex dream about Annie?”
“Of course not.”
“Good.”
“Although if you did, that could also be considered progress.”
“Oh god.”
“Look, Jeff.” Dr. Sternin stood and crossed to sit down next to him on the couch. “Your dreams so far have shown that you can let yourself think about Annie as more than just a friend, and they display a surprising need on your part for intimacy.” She shook her head. “But until you force yourself to confront all facets of your attraction to her, you cannot understand what it is you want out of a relationship with her.” She patted his hand. “Is that clear?”
“Yeah.” Jeff nodded slowly. “Yeah, I guess it is.”
“Excellent.” Dr. Sternin stood and crossed to her desk, retrieving Jeff’s phone and holding it out to him as he approached. “Then I’ll see you next week.”
***
Author: lapacifidora
Spoilers: Anything through 3.07 is fair game.
Rating/ Warnings: PG-14, for language
Word Count: 2,144
Disclaimers: Not mine. Although I think Dan Harmon knows this friend of mine and based Troy on her… Married to the Mob belongs to Jonathan Demme.
Author’s note: This was prompted by westwingwolf after Jeff’s slip in “Studies in Modern Movement” that he’s seeing a therapist. She wanted to ‘see’ Jeff’s therapy sessions when he was talking about Annie. Sadly, perhaps, I have a gutter brain. That’s when I turned to honey_pie1 for help. So, I guess you can blame all three of us.
This is also partially inspired by the inimitable Saber Shadow Kat. The title of this chapter is from New Order’s “Bizarre Love Triangle.”
***
“Mrs. Ann Emerson, widow of Richard ‘The Doctor’ Emerson. Formerly Ms. Annie Edison of Riverside and daughter of Tony and Barbara Edison. Graduate of Greendale Community College, five years of work as a physician’s assistant before taking the last two years off.” Special Agent Jeff Winger tossed the file down on the metal table in Interrogation Four as he came round the side of the table. “Why’d you take the last two years off, Ann? Trying to get yourself knocked up?” He sat down in the chair opposite the brunette, her back to the door, his to the two-way mirror taking up one whole wall.
“Go to hell.” Annie continued shredding the Styrofoam cup she’d drained of water 20 minutes ago, while she’d been sitting in the shadowy room alone.
“No, now don’t be mean.” Jeff leaned across the table and tapped the file between them with a finger. “Why you chose to take a substantial break right in the middle of a moderately successful streak is one of the few things I don’t know from this file.” He sat back in his chair and drew the file close to him, flipping it open and lifting up the pages, glancing at information he’d memorized weeks ago. “The only thing I can think is that old Dick-”
“Rich.” Annie interrupted quietly. “He went by Rich. He always said the only guy cool enough to pull off ‘Rick’ was Bogart and ‘Dick’ wasn’t classy enough for the kind of clientele with whom he worked.”
“‘With whom he worked’? Aren’t we proper?”
“Good grammar costs nothing.” Annie drew a shuddering breath and fingered a shred of Styrofoam before dropping it on top of the pile she’d left where the cup once sat.
“I suppose it doesn’t.” Jeff eyed her for a moment before tucking his chin and glancing surreptitiously behind him toward the two-way. “Now, to return to my point: The only thing I can imagine that would make you leave your job like that is that good old Rich put his foot down and said he wanted a little Richie Junior.”
“Because that’s all I’m good for?” Annie raised her head and met his gaze for the first time since he’d entered. Her face was pale and her eyes bloodshot, but her expression was grim and not a little disgusted. “I was a mob wife by proxy and all I could possibly be good for is popping out the next generation of hoodlums?” She barked out a sound that could have, under other circumstances, been a laugh. “Nice one, Mr. Smith.” She frowned. “That’s not even your real name, is it?”
“Why did you quit your job two years ago?”
“What’s your name?”
“Tell me why you quit your job. Did Rich make you do it? Was he forcing you to help him stitch up members of the Shaughnessy Crime Family?” Jeff sat forward, resting both elbows on the table top and propping his chin on his fists. “You know, if you were forced to help him, the judge will probably reduce your sentence.”
“Tell me what your real fucking name is.” Annie leaned forward, resting both her palms flat on the table and staring Jeff straight in the eye. “I already told you things I’d never said to no one, not even my own husband, and I didn’t even know your real name. You want me to say anything else, be straight with me.” She watched, her face scrunched in confusion, as Jeff sighed and dropped his fists, mimicking her stance.
She watched his face; he watched the 3 inches between his fingertips and hers where they lay on the tabletop.
“I was never anything but straight with you, Annie.”
“Bullshit.” She stretched her fingertips out and then curled them in, under her palms. “If you were never anything but honest, why couldn’t you tell me your real name?”
“Annie, this is a difficult situation.” Jeff raised one hand to pinch the bridge of his nose. “And we’re in an interrogation room.”
“Ha!” Annie shook her head, tapping a finger against the table as she listed off his trespasses. “You lied about being a plumber. You lied about living in my building. You lied about your name.” She closed her eyes and shook her head. “And even after we went out to that ridiculous bar-”
“It’s a perfectly good bar!”
“It’s ridiculous and pretentious, and their drinks are overpriced.” Annie opened her eyes and looked at him sadly. “And even after we went there and then you were so nice and you pulled that splinter out of my foot – and then you didn’t even bat an eye when Jenny freaking Adams Shaughnessy showed up and thought her Joey was hiding in my bathroom – an-and-” she paused and took another deep breath, looking off at the cinderblock wall on her right. “And you said all those nice things about how I shouldn’t worry about it because we’ve all been there…” She trailed off into silence broken only by the ticking of the industrial clock bolted to the wall above the door. She turned back to him. “You want to know anything else from me, you want me to help you, you need to be straight with me.”
“Winger.” Jeff swallowed and glanced down at the open file. “Jeffrey Tobias Winger, special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I work out of the Denver office, and I’m part of a special team that handles what organized crime there is in the southwest.” He shrugged when she looked at him askance. “It’s not exactly Boston or Chicago or Cleveland or Buffalo, now is it?”
“No.” Annie shook her head, her lips tilting up at one corner into the semblance of a smile. She blew out a breath that caught the strands of hair escaping from her messy bun and caused them to sway slightly. “I quit because a patient from the office where I worked, her elderly father moved in with her. Britta couldn’t handle taking care of him on her own and she couldn’t afford to hire a nurse, so I’d take the bus to her house and watch him while she was at work.” She flattened her palms out again, moving them slightly. Jeff could see the heat impressions they left against the cold metal bead into condensation and then fade. “It didn’t pay as well as Dr. Duncan’s office, but he understood, and it’s not like Leonard was going to live forever. Dr. Duncan said I could come back when Britta’s father passed on.” She closed her eyes for a moment, and then looked him square in the eye. “I never helped Rich. He never asked me to. He never forced me to. I didn’t even know what he did and who he did it for until the last couple years, and then only because he couldn’t hide it anymore. Then Joey had him killed because it turns out the d-bag was-” She paused and bit her lip as she thought. Finally she shrugged and blushed, tilting her head to one side. “He was, y’know, with Joey’s girl on the side.”
“He was an idiot.”
“You don’t need to tell me twice. I mean, I guess I kind of understand now how he got caught up in all this mess, but he could’ve gone to the police at any time. We could’ve gotten a deal for witness protection, right?”
“Not about that.” Jeff shook his head once, and then shook it again when Annie looked up at him in surprise. “I mean, yes, he was an idiot because he kept working for Colorado’s biggest crime boss he probably had enough information – even circumstantial stuff – to secure a place in WitSec for both of you.” He closed the file and leaned forward a little farther across the table. “But he was an idiot because of the girl.”
“Tell me about it.” Annie tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, catching the end of it with her finger and twirling it absently. “Of all the girls he had to go shtupping, I don’t understand why he had to pick her. Everyone knew Joey had been nice to her for months, even if Jenny refused to see it.”
“No, Annie, that’s not-” Jeff sighed and looked toward the ceiling, trying not to glance back over his shoulder at the two-way mirror again. He met her eyes and reached forward, laying his hand over hers as he continued quietly. “He’s an idiot because why would he go looking someplace else when he had you at home?”
“Oh.” Annie blinked slowly. “Oh.” Jeff watched as the corners of her mouth twitched up briefly before she took a deep breath through her nose and forced a blank expression onto her face. She glanced down at where his hand lay atop hers and turned hers over, pressing her palm to his and wrapping her fingers lightly around his wrist. She swallowed and licked her lips. “OK. What’s next?”
***
Dr. Sternin looked up at Jeff, who was shifting uncomfortably on the couch.
“And then what happened?”
“And then-” Jeff exhaled noisily. “And then I realized there was an orange cat skulking in the shadows and I got up to let it out, but when I opened the door, it was made of graham crackers and when I turned around, Annie and the interrogation room were gone. It was a disco and something by Abba or something was playing.” He shrugged. “And then I woke up.”
“Interesting.” Dr. Sternin made a note on her pad and leaned to one side, resting an elbow on the arm of her chair. “Both this dream and the one you told me about last week are surprisingly…detailed and elaborate.” She reached for her water glass and took a sip. “But they’re also less, well, less explicit than I would have imagined from a man in his prime.”
“Is that- is that bad?” Jeff sat up straighter, clasping his hands together in his lap. “Or good? Or, I don’t know, does it mean there’s something wrong with me?”
“No, no.” The doctor chuckled and shook her head. “It’s simply surprising. Tell me, Jeff, when was the last time you had sexual intercourse?”
“Um.” Jeff scratched the back of his neck. “Um.”
“It’s not a difficult question, Jeff, and I promise not to draw any conclusions from your answer.” Dr. Sternin pointed to her desk, where a copy of the DSM IV sat prominently, and held up her other hand as though swearing an oath. “You have my word of honor.”
“It’s, um, it’s been a while.” Jeff wiped his palms on his jeans and looked down at his left shoe. “It’s been about, um, six months.”
“Very interesting.”
“You said you weren’t going to draw any conclusions!”
“I’m not, Jeff.” She shook her head. “It’s simply interesting that you’ve gone all this time without physical stimulation of that sort and yet, when you’ve granted yourself permission to think about a woman to whom you are attracted, you have these fairly tame fantasies.”
“Is it time for me to go yet?” Jeff would never admit that his tone was whiny, but it certainly wasn’t one he’d use in public.
“Now, now.” Dr. Sternin smiled at him. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of. Fantasies are not always twisted and rated R. Sometimes, they are simply scenarios that allow us to experiment with feelings or actions our inhibitions prevent us from acting out in our conscious lives.” She set aside her notepad and pen and leaned forward, resting her elbows on her thighs and clasping her hands together. “It appears to me that you have more than just a mental block relating to Annie’s age. So, your homework for this week is to try to make more progress with the Annie in your head.”
“Are you-” Jeff swallowed hard as he stared at his therapist with wide eyes. “Please tell me you aren’t telling me to have a sex dream about Annie?”
“Of course not.”
“Good.”
“Although if you did, that could also be considered progress.”
“Oh god.”
“Look, Jeff.” Dr. Sternin stood and crossed to sit down next to him on the couch. “Your dreams so far have shown that you can let yourself think about Annie as more than just a friend, and they display a surprising need on your part for intimacy.” She shook her head. “But until you force yourself to confront all facets of your attraction to her, you cannot understand what it is you want out of a relationship with her.” She patted his hand. “Is that clear?”
“Yeah.” Jeff nodded slowly. “Yeah, I guess it is.”
“Excellent.” Dr. Sternin stood and crossed to her desk, retrieving Jeff’s phone and holding it out to him as he approached. “Then I’ll see you next week.”
***
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no subject
Date: 2011-11-18 01:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-18 06:58 pm (UTC)I'm not sure what it is exactly, but he just comes across as so tender...
BAH.
Shut your pie hole and move to Reno so we can squee in real life, y/y?