Support Group - Feb 2021

[tramitem]

Who: OPEN (Including to all the new characters who app throughout the month)
What: Bureau Run, Non-Mandatory Support Group
When: There are meetings at various times during the week, whatever works for your character between 8 am and 10 pm
Where: There are meetings at various locations around NYC, whatever works for your character
Rating/Warnings: We ask that players put appropriate warning labels in the subject lines of their threads as they become necessary


There’s a generic spread of food on a table off to one side of the room: donuts, muffins, bagels, and cookies; coffee, lemonade, water, and because one of the Different asked for it, hot chocolate. Maybe you’re hungry enough to try it—it’s free after all.

Or maybe you can’t stomach anything, given the event you’re attending.

The space is a local rec center. The beige-painted cinder block walls and the fluorescent lighting are a terrible combination. Maybe they are reminiscent of the public school you attended in your youth?

Why are you here? Curiosity? Maybe the Bureau official will say something that will help you make sense of things? The meeting was interesting—who knew there were so many people like you, receiving memories of a past life? The group was led by someone from The Bureau—the Department of Medical Services. Some people are staying in their chairs and chatting—they must know each other from previous meetings. Some of them are gravitating towards the food.

How do you feel about tonight? Has it helped you come to terms with the dream of memories you’re having? Maybe it’s time to talk to others, get an understanding of their experience.

Comments

[phdmotherfucker]

Harleen stands by the refreshment table after the main meeting, shifting her weight awkwardly and picking at the rim of her cup. Tiny flakes of styrofoam float unappealingly in the coffee, but she only has it to hide that she has no idea what to do with her hands. She took one sip and it was too bitter and acidic to be actually palatable for her tastes (hot cups of flavored creamers, with a hint of coffee).

Her head was swimming with too much possibility to actually pay attention during the meeting, and she hadn't really absorbed anything that had been said. She was too used to leading group sessions. Being therapized was an uncomfortable change of roles. Harleen had declined speaking to her own experience. Maybe next time. Maybe the time after. Maybe never.

Eventually she takes a breath, puts on her big girl pants, and smiles thinly at the next person to come up to the table. "How many of these things have you been to?"

[darkforcerising]

Anakin wasn't expecting anyone to say hello to him when he went up to grab a donut and hot cocoa. He didn't drink coffee because of the caffeine. He had his air pods in, music turned to max volume, so whoever was nearby could probably hear the beat drop just as well as he could.

Most probably thought he was ruining his ears.

He didn't care.

He could still hear everyone else around him anyway.

And it wasn't the only odd thing about him. He had one leather glove on his right hand and none on his left. He wore a few layers of hoodies, but not a proper winter coat, but he didn't seem at all phased by the cold. And he carried a beat-up black, backpack with him.

As soon as Harleen started speaking he looked over at her and then politely popped out the pods, stashing them in his pockets. He pulled out his phone and hit pause on the song he was listening to.

"Oh- hi. I come every once in a while, since about..." he paused in thought, trying to remember when he started. "Last February."

He decided on a chocolate glazed donut which he picked up with his left hand. He offered Harleen his right, gloved hand. "I'm Anakin." His right hand was not biological, it was prosthetic, something Harleen would feel the moment she shook his hand. It wasn't just prosthetic, it was made from metal and cybernetics, though, as mysterious as that all was, really only the unforgiving metal would stand out.

And this was a test, because Anakin could tell a lot about a person by the way they responded to his prosthetic hand.

[phdmotherfucker]

"Huh. Well, happy early anniversary, I suppose."

Harleen spent years perfecting her professional manner, and her handshake reflected that. She didn't balk when she felt the prosthesis under the glove -- much of her doctorate work had been with veterans, so amputations didn't shock her anymore -- but she did make a note that he deliberately offered that hand when meeting new people.

"Harleen. It's ... wild, that this has been happening to people to so long, and it's not-- I mean, not so much as a Twitter hashtag!"

[darkforcerising]

The change in Anakin's demeanor was slight, but he faced Harleen more openly after she willingly continued shaking his hand even after she must have realized it was a prosthetic.

But his voice was low and conspiratorial. "Why," his eyes flicked to the facilitator of the Support Group that evening, "do you think that is?"

[phdmotherfucker]

"I think ... That would be a conversation better had elsewhere." Harleen's brow arched slightly and her lips pressed together as she followed his gaze. "I also think that if this has been happening for at least a year, repeatedly, to a growing number of people, then the Bureau must be terrible at their job."

[darkforcerising]

"Yes... and no," Anakin said.

"But like you said, that's a conversation better had elsewhere. Like," he looked performatively thoughtful, "the bar up the street?"

[phdmotherfucker]

She tapped a finger against her cup and considered if this was a line, pick-up or serial killer. Both had a thing for secondary locations. But she wanted information, and Anakin had been part of this ... experience for longer than anyone else at the group tonight.

"You buying?"

[darkforcerising]

It was none of those. Anakin was being completely honest... while trying to be subtle about the Bureau.

"Sure," he said with a shrug and then took a bite from his donut.

He gestured for the door. "I'm ready."

[phdmotherfucker]

Harleen grabbed her purse and followed him to the door. She tapped out a quick message to a friend about where she was headed, just in case, and shoved her hands in her coat pockets to keep from obviously fidgeting.

"Sooo." She chewed her lip before deciding, screw it, might as well get it all out. "How much of a shitshow is this whole thing, really?"

[not_as_i_do]

"A handful," Martin replies cordially. He'd spoken a little bit about struggling with discordant memories, but not been comfortable with going into detail about much beyond being a bachelor in this life and getting memories of a wife and two grown children. "I don't come often ... talking to others on the Network and getting the occasional drink or cup of coffee usually helps more. But lately some of the memories have been... A bit rough."

[phdmotherfucker]

Harleen smiled thinly. She supposed there was some comfort in community, but sharing intimate and personal experiences with total strangers was way easier than doing so in front of a professional colleague. Not that she had wanted to speak about her memories of torture anyway, but seeing Dr. Whitly in the circle of chairs had really put the kibosh on that idea.

"At least you had some nicer ones to ease you in."

[not_as_i_do]

He could sense her discomfort, and winced a bit, himself. "And I can guess that I'm not exactly your ideal conversational partner for all of this, either. I'm sorry. For ... for whatever it's worth, I don't let anything that happens here leak into office life. Or vice versa. ... One of my patients is Different, though you wouldn't catch him dead at one of these things."

[phdmotherfucker]

"It's not that. You're very easy to talk to, but I'm not--" She looked around at the mingling group, and the counselor smiling and offering platitudes. "They want feel good stories. 'Now I can play piano,' and not 'now I have PTSD.' For example."

[not_as_i_do]

"That bad, eh?" He winces in sympathy. "I ... my first memory was of talking to someone I called my son ... and I've never even been married. He was old enough to be in college, at least."

He pauses, lowering his voice. "Earlier this week, I found out he stabbed me. I'm not even sure if I survive it. The memory cut out right after."

[phdmotherfucker]

She knew the magnitude of revealing that kind of memory. She held her breath for a few heartbeats before slowly letting go.

"I was ... A man strapped to to a table, and tortured me with four hundred and fifty volts."

That part wasn't hard to admit. She'd mentioned it to a few others, although she still hadn't spoken in front of the group.

"But I wasn't scared, at all. I loved him."

That was the secret heart of it.

[not_as_i_do]

Martin's face opened up into a mask of shock. "Four hun -- oh my God. That's ... that's certainly a form of BDSM I've never heard of." He coughed a little, recovering, processing the implications of what that could do to the human body.

"But you trusted him to know he wouldn't kill you. That ... that's a lot of trust." He puffed his cheeks as he blew out a breath.

"You know, the funny thing is ... when I got stabbed? I didn't feel betrayed, or angry, or any of that, either. I was just ... proud. So I think I know where you're coming from, a little. Or - that other me would know where the other you was. If that makes sense."

[phdmotherfucker]

"It wasn't a sex thing, it was a-- Well, I don't know exactly what it was, but I--"

She stammered and trailed into silence, looking around at the rest of the group mingling in the room. She rubbed her arms and shifted nervously.

"Can we... Is that offer for something stronger than coffee still on the table?"

[sublimelymagnificentblitz]

"Too many," Jecht grumped. This was, after all, his second. One was too many. He'd been pushing off others, but now that the offseason was here, he was out of excuses and honestly a little worried about missing something important if he skipped too often.

He waved a donut idly her way. "Weird, ain't it?"

[phdmotherfucker]

She tipped her head in consideration and tried to put together a diplomatically neutral response.

"There's nothing weird about wanting to know you aren't going through somehthing alone," she said. "Although this particular meeting has been more uncomfortable than helpful. I'm still trying to accept the whole ... That this stuff is even real."

She frowned down at her cup and watched crumbs of styrofoam float on the surface.

"I guess they don't have the resources for individual therapy."

[sublimelymagnificentblitz]

"Yeah, that was what I mean. The whole crazy stuff to begin with. You have a weird daydream one day and suddenly they're givin' you a lecture about different worlds and stuff?"

Jecht shook his head. "But... there's somethin' to it. I'm still trying to get it myself, but it's real. People here had stuff just appear for 'em. Remember stuff they couldn't have made up. An' I believe them."

[phdmotherfucker]

"It makes me wonder, you know? How long this has been happening, how far reaching. Are there people who get these memories and never know what's happening to them?"

She was already planning the research outline.

[sublimelymagnificentblitz]

"The way they talk, it seems like it's way too obvious when it happens. Besides, how many of us can there be?"

Just a small group here. Right? Jecht hadn't ever considered a scenario in which people underwent this world- or even country-wide.

[phdmotherfucker]

"That's the thing, though. I have no idea how many of us there are, and nobody else seems to know either. Or if they do, they aren't talking." She frowned and turned away from where the group counselor was chatting with a regular attendee. "These kinds of meetings should build community, but it keeps us isolated too."

[sublimelymagnificentblitz]

"We got the Network... you heard about that, right?" Jecht had gotten his intro right at the start, but were they still doing that? Was that for everyone?

[phdmotherfucker]

"I've posted a little bit, but..." She shrugged a little. "I don't know. Maybe I'm just being difficult because I'm still resisting all this."