Dr. PS431

“ I mean… I’m technically his legal guardian, but I respect his privacy. If he wanted me to know, he’d tell me himself.”

Connor might seem like a push over now but having the blood of both androids and humans figuratively stained on his hands, coupled with the mostly public knowledge of his use of forensics, reconstructs, psychology, negotiation, interrogation, voice imitation and martial abilities. He was a force to be reckoned with if he didn’t already cement himself into a passive roll, even against his own well being with the exception of if someone where to come to harm because of his unwillingness to fight back.

There wasn’t much to say to Thomas’s reassurances, he still didn’t like the idea that he and Caleb shared the same psychologist and with the added statement of siblings and not sibling, which was only later confirmed in Thomas’s next question, Connie was also another client. It felt a little weird to be having this conversation over the phone and not in his physical presence, which was probably better. Thomas couldn’t see the defensive stance he has taken on nor could he read his already high stress levels. The stress of trying to keep up a façade of being fine and trying to predict and act accordingly might have been a bit to much for him to handle for a long period of time and would have likely had him over heated and temporarily shut down in his office.

However Thomas’s second statement had been an interesting one, which he had to take a long moment to really think about it. Why wasn’t he happy about the wedding? The wedding had been in the planning stages for nearly two years already and despite there being a suggestion book. He hadn’t been able to contribute to it as much as he’d have liked and any idea’s he did come up with had already been rejected. He also wasn’t particularly looking forward to the party either, it felt as if everyone had someone to be with and there was also guests he didn’t look forward to seeing either. He felt like an outsider but the wedding wasn’t about him and how he felt.

“No. That moment has already come and gone.” He answered unintentionally cryptically. “If I suspected that was the case, I’d have left sooner or expected them to have moved out by now. There simply isn’t much to be excited for, the wedding doesn’t affect me positively or negatively. Caleb and Gavin have been together for nearly two years now, which is great but after the wedding, that doesn’t change. The only thing that will change is Caleb will no longer referenced as Caleb RK900 but as Caleb Reed, which I imagine is still the intended plan.” He explained, returning to the seat he had original jump out of at the unexpected call.

Thomas listened quietly as Connor spoke. So...yes this was bothering him. Maybe not how he pictured it, but still. That was more than enough to go off of for now. 

“I know you’re slow to open up, but if it helps you feel better, everything that happens between us stays confidential. Honestly you’re the easiest regarding that, since Caleb is essentially Connie’s guardian while also being my client. So the boundaries are blurred a bit. But for you? It’s pretty easy. Consider it like a bubble floating in space. Nothing around it, completely cut off from prying eyes and ears.”

He tilted his head as his tone became more serious. “So please know that I cannot help you-a service you hired me for, I would like to remind you-if you lie. You can lie to yourself-for now at least-but I cannot help you if you are not honest with me. You can pick what to discuss and work on, you just have to be honest.”

“I would say something about you being mean to my brother, but I know he’s a tough nut to crack, and kindness doesn’t get through to him as well as harsh truth.”

Nobody asked but now I’m worried I’ll forget.

Every client gets their own sticker book after they have a goal set and Thomas gets a feel for their personality. It started as a joke but if it works he’s happy to change everybody’s behavior with stickers.

Get enough stickers and maybe you get a prize.

“I….actually have been trying really hard…” Caleb pouted sadly after tugging his shirt to read the sticker.”

Thomas glanced up long enough to see the sticker. Oh. Shit sorry. Those are for Connie. Here.” He pulled out a different pack of stickers and pulled a frog sticker out. He repeated the action and carefully smacked it on Caleb’s chest. “There you go. I really mean it.” 

Intentionally or not, he went into straight detective mode. He hadn’t given Thomas this sort of information. Thus meant someone was feeding it to him and that didn’t sit well with him.

“There is nothing to be stress over, this isn’t my wedding. I’ve done what was asked of me, there is nothing to be self-critical over.” He stated, Thomas wasn’t wrong in the assumption that he’s keep himself busy to some regard. 

However, he was far from having a meltdown, he was just depressed. Not wanting to be a problem or cause any problems and having been stripped of the few things that he thought could have been fun and would have enjoyed. He already steeled himself to the role of simply obeying and intended to keep his head down throughout the wedding. Caleb wanted a quiet wedding, Connor’s intentions where to keep it that way and not be the one to cause a scene. He’d probably just hover over to Hank or Chloe, maybe Chris for the majority of the time, if not kept himself somewhat out of sight and making sure everything was going well. It was still debatable whither or not he wanted to go on the family honeymoon trip. Caleb has Gavin, Connie has Suzi and he’d well, have the dogs… which if he was going to spend time taking care of the dogs, he could save them all a headache and do it from home.

“As far as I’m aware, all is well. I can pass long your concerns if you wish.” That last statement told him all he needed to know about how Thomas got the information. He shouldn’t have been surprised that Caleb would also have gotten him recommended, which made him less inclined to want to open up.

Thomas would have enjoyed his conversations with Connor more if he wasn’t responsible for his well being. There had been a few times during the revolution when he’d seen news stories talking about the state-of-the-art android detective and wondered how he would have fared going toe-to-toe with him. 

But, he was financially obligated to assist in bettering him, not messing with him. So he refrained. Maybe that would be a goal for himself: help get Connor to a point where Thomas could mess with him without undoing all his work. 

“Don’t worry, your siblings haven’t said done anything but talk about their own lives. I’m just very very good at putting pieces together.” He said, taking a guess at the cause behind Connor’s defensive tone. He hadn’t seen Connor as much as the others, but Thomas could build a psychological profile the way RKs could build a criminal one. It’s how he managed to stay undetected during the revolution.

Inquiries l Accepting

Thomas reached into his desk and pulled out a sticker. “Here you go.” He said, peeling it off and smacking it on the android’s chest. 

“And where are you getting your information from? I’d like to have a conversation with your source about them spreading false information.” He replied to the call, mildly taken back that he was contacted. Mildly might have been an understatement, he hadn’t been doing anything particularly important on his computer in his office but jumped out of his chair at the call over his internal communications line. 

Much like a child caught with his hand in a cookie jar, he was technically in trouble. He had suspended the sessions with him when he took the job in Gran.d Rap.ids at the start of the new year and was gone for 4 months. A poor excuse but it give him time to focus on the job at hand and saved him a 2 hour drive back and forth. When he finally returned to the city, the thought had crossed his mind to make a call into the office but at the same time, he was hopping to give himself a bit of a break and resume contact after Caleb’s honeymoon. He didn’t particularly want to deal with his stress levels and just wanted to try and be there for his brother in case anything was needed.

“Are you implying I should get in my car and drive down to your office at 3:47am in the morning? Because I don’t recall scheduling an appointment for this hour.” He added, keeping a calm tone to his voice despite the added stress he was now under.

Thomas let out a short laugh. “Oh that’s Doctor-Informant confidentiality. I would never willingly break the law for something like that.” He joked. It seemed that the RKs were all far too serious for their own good. Even if Caleb appeared to have some sense of humor, there was a thin line between his jokes and a poorly hidden coping mechanism.

Thomas hadn’t been certain if Connor would answer, but androids in general “slept” far less than humans. And he figured that Connor was the type who’d rather do a dozen projects rather than spend time alone with his thoughts. He had initially been frustrated at both his and Caleb’s avoidance tactics. But being frustrated and sending frequent reminders was statistically more likely to cause them both to avoid him, rather than actually show up. 

“I know there’s a major life event coming up for your family. I know that causes stress for even the most stress-free person. I know that you are highly self-critical, so I wanted to ensure that you were not...struggling.” He said, choosing his words carefully. ‘On the brink of a meltdown’ was what he’d pictured, but that was a bit of an exaggeration. 

“I’m just playing it safe. I don’t want to force Connor to talk before he’s ready. This is the same man who spent weeks hiding away in the camper because we had a disagreement. He feels guilty, I feel guilty, but nothing is going to happen until both are ready to talk. I’m an open book, I cried because I thought my engagement ring was gone forever. but Connor needs to be open too…It can’t be one sided. But Connor doesn’t own me that vulnerability. He suggested I get therapy long before I did, and I wasn’t ready, and that made him feel like I was ignoring him and not taking him seriously. It was frustrating for him, and for me too because I wasn’t ready and I couldn’t articulate it. and from there it went down hill.”

“Don’t get me wrong, we still care about each other, we still like hanging out when we can. Arguments are rare, and home life isn’t awkward or tense…the hurt feelings just lurk, and my actions caused them, and between you and me, the only way to fix it is not something I’m very willing to do…it’s a very bad thing to do…and it goes against every boundary I’d set for myself when I’d decided to be different from what I was meant to to be…”

“I understand, but remember that playing it safe very easily turns into avoidance. All I’m saying is not to decide how something will turn out before someone else has a chance to react. Since, you know, it’s a two-way street.” 

“I assume that I’m going to hurt him again. I don’t try to predict Connor’s reactions or how he feels, I just follow the patterns that have presented themselves and I continuously hurt people without meaning to…I need to fix myself and whatever is wrong with me before I can ever think to fix relationships…”

“And so what if it is negative? What harm is it actually doing? Half the time I don’t even know why I come to my appointments. It’s not some chemical imbalance in the brain that you can medicate or fix. Connor’s problems are from trauma…I was just made wrong.” 

“Well, when Connor gets over our mutual RK bullshit and starts talking about his feelings then I’ll happily listen. but until then, I’m not poking the bear”

Thomas sighed softly. “It would seem that I hit a nerve. Has anyone told you that you’re stubborn?” A rhetorical question, he could guess the answer. “It is one thing to consider past experiences, but one cannot predict the future. Perhaps Connor wants the same things as you, yet doesn’t know how to broach the subject. Perhaps your assumptions are correct. You won’t know until you try.”

He leans forward. “I’m not telling you what to do. If you actually want my suggestion, and by that I mean you actually want to hear my professional, peer-reviewed and evidence-based advice, and actually plan to implement it, then I suggest you find a way to express all of this with Connor in a way that very clearly and very plainly states your communication needs. The method I suggested is one such way.”

Thomas at Caleb, internally.

“Write it out? And then what? leave it for him to find at 3 am when he comes home from work after a 12 hour shift? We hardly see each other now that I’ve got myself into a set stasis cycle.”

“My self view isn’t negative, I just know my faults. I know my mistakes, and I don’t get mad at people for holding me responsible. I made a mistake and Connor has every right to hold me responsible. So I just have to do my best to earn his trust back, And if it turns out that my best isn’t good enough, then I’ll just have to live with that.”

‘See, there’s this fantastic skill I’ve developed when I need to tell someone something important and they aren’t there. It’s called messaging.’ At least, that’s what he briefly considered saying. What he actually said was more ‘professional’. 

“Send him a message. Or find a time when your schedules line up. I think you’re making this into a bigger deal than it is. You assume that Connor is going to be...what? Insulted? Angry? I haven’t worked much with him, but that is not the impression I get of him. You have to give him the chance, rather than deciding how he feels without consulting him.”

“Tell me something I don’t know, doc.” Caleb sighed “Their are things I don’t even think to tell him, because in the grand scheme of things, they don’t matter, Or at least I don’t see them mattering to anyone else. Things I did for my own fulfillment, like picking up new hobbies, or going to the academy, or taking the exam to become a fully fledged detective. those were things I already had, why would sitting in classes be worth talking about? But it’s not like I was actively hiding it, it just didn’t come up, I didn’t tell Gavin either…”

“We try so hard to communicate, but we just…suck at it. I think about what to say and how I want to say it and it’s still wrong, I still piss everyone off, and I just end up realizing that maybe I’m just an unlikeable person. And I guess that’s okay. Gavin likes me, and one person is all you really need in life. At least that’s more than I ever expected to have when I first deviated.”

“I’ve been trying, but it always ends with both of us frustrated before I can even get the words out. Connor deserves so much better than to always feel attacked and rejected in his own home. I’ve broken his trust and I still haven’t earned it back.”

Thomas once again silently praised his creators for making his default expression a truly neutral one. 

“Then you need to sit down with them and write it out. I can help you come up with a list of scenarios and information that needs to be communicated, if you want. Then Connor can add to it if he so chooses. I highly doubt he’d take offense to it, since he most certainly doesn’t hate you. 

“Depends on the brother. Connie I can see, love him to death, but he threatened my friend over a sparring accident…Connor…I don’t give Connor an easy time, I mess up and when I try to keep from bothering him when I know he’s busy, He thinks it’s because I don’t trust him. I guess he feels unwanted, or like an outsider. I don’t blame him, two years isn’t even enough time to scratch the surface of his trauma…”

“I’m not valid, I’m a cry baby war machine.” He laughed. “If I cry at my wedding I’m sending the photographer home, I’m an ugly crier”

“Regardless of the brother, you should perhaps consider that you’re all sorely lacking in communication skills.” He sighs and steeples his fingers as he debates the wording he wants.

“Look, if you’re continuing to run into communication issues because of misunderstandings, then perhaps you should all sit down and come up with some simple boundaries. Similar to how roommates will leave a tie on the door as a ‘do not disturb’ message. Decide how you wish to communicate when to approach, when not to approach, and what each of you is comfortable and uncomfortable with. Write it down if that is needed.