darker_london | Therapy Session (Deirdre, Peter)

"Where do I start?" Deirdre asked, her eyes searching Peter's for some sort of answer she was dimly aware he was going to make her find for herself. "I don't remember how to do this. Maybe that's the problem." She was sitting in Peter's office, curled up on his comfy sofa, clutching his jumper to her chest. It smelled like him and stability and she liked that. He was sitting beside her, though he had turned as well, so they were facing each other, and though is eyes held no answers, they did contain perfect and easy kindness. Peter radiated benevolence and even when Deirdre was feeling utterly lost, that simple fact could keep her from falling.

"I don't think there is any perfect place to start, Deirdre." Peter ran his fingers through his hair unconsciously. "Just tell me how you feel." Even if it was incoherent, he was now quite adept at translating her as long as she stayed away from pop culture references.

"I feel..." Deirdre flapped her hands around to create a visual representation of how she felt. Crazy and flingy and unsure of which direction to go in. "I feel dangerous." She finished, her voice quiet and slightly ashamed. "Sometimes I think I'm no better than the demons you have locked up in here because they can't help themselves. I just haven't been given the opportunity to act on my anger..."

Peter shook his head firmly. "No, Deirdre. That's the difference between you and them. They make opportunities for themselves. They don't need a 'reason' to harm someone. The very fact that they want to is reason enough for them. That's not you, Sweetheart. In understand how you mightn't feel like there's a difference, but there is."

Deirdre took a slow breath and she accepted that Peter was telling her the truth. Peter always told the truth. It was a fundamental part of who Peter was, that he didn't mislead people and that was one of the reasons why she trusted him so implicitly. "Peter?"

"Yes, Deirdre?"

"I...slept with someone else. A boy. Well okay, he's not a not he's a magician. And I slept with him the other day. Sort of before I told Renee and Kait I needed to focus on me. I wanted to feel...in control. I'm worried that I'm not comfortable with that part of my life. I don't know how to make it better."

Peter didn't react openly to the fact that Deirdre had cheated on her girlfriends, and for that she was grateful. "I think you need to focus on how being with this...magician...made you feel. And why you needed to feel that way."

"I slept with Flynn because I needed to know that sex could be a good thing. And Renee and Kait weren't mad and neither was Quinn and that was good, but then I...I guess it made me forget that sleeping around is a bad thing. I dunno. Afterwards I didn't feel like I'd done anything wrong. I've slept with more people since being in a relationship than I did when I wasn't in one. And that's messed up. I'm messed up."

"No, Sweetheart." Peter reached out for Deirdre's hand then. "You are not messed up. Everyone goes through difficult times in their life. I did. You were there. And I have to say so far you're handling this much better than I did."

"Yeah?" Deirdre looked impressed.

"Er...I've hit rough patches several times in my life. And during the course of those, I knocked up an evil woman, I slapped you, I alienated everyone I loved, I drank myself into a stupor more times than I can count, I sent my kids away, and I tried to hang myself. Those aren't really fantastic examples of dealing with a situation in a calm and orderly fashion."

"But neither is cheating on my girlfriends." Deirdre frowned.

"Honey, you made a mistake and you realised right away that you had to deal with it. That is my exact shortcoming. And it's the first step in recovering."

Deirdre searched Peter's face for insincerity and of course she found none. "Yeah. I dunno. Peter? Can we just...can you just talk to me? About anything. I just don't...I don't want to think about me any more. I just want to be us again, okay? Oooh! Say something and I'll mock you!" Deirdre decided that Peter's hearty laugh at her request was the best sound in the world.