bit from a fic I'm tentatively working on, currently titled Tommy Kinard Goes To Therapy, which explores tommy's internalised homophobia and the toxic masculinity he's inherited from his dad:
Tommy hates group therapy.
Granted, it's his first session so he doesn't actually have any experience with it, but by God, that is not going to stop him.
It's a gay veteran's group, and it had been Sal's idea for him to go.
Still, Tommy had gone. And now he's looking forward to an hour and a half of sitting on a deeply uncomfortable plastic chair while drinking awful coffee and 'discussing his experiences and issues with people who share them'.
He's so caught up in his annoyance, staring into his coffee cup like it contains the answers to the meaning of his life, that he doesn't notice the person in front of him until she says:
"hi, is this your first time here?"
Her voice is lovely, soft despite the boston accent, and when he looks up, he finds a face to match; brown eyes, soft smile, skin covered in freckles.
She's looking at him expectantly, so he clears his throat and manages a "yeah" in response. She nods, not at all put off by his monosyllabic answer.
"Great! Welcome," she says, "I'm Danielle Manning, the group leader and therapist. You can just call me Dani." She doesn't say anything else and it takes him a moment to realise that she's waiting for an introduction in return.
"Tommy," he manages, and then, after a beat, "Kinard."
"Irish?" she asks. He nods. She smiles, "me too."
He musters a smile, weak and brittle though it is, at her enthusiasm. She must sense his discomfort because she claps him on the shoulder and says, "don't worry about participating today - or ever. You can just sit and listen, if you're most comfortable that way." He nods, and says nothing. Dani seems fine with his silence, simply gives him another smile and a friendly pat on the shoulder, then wanders off -- presumably to greet someone else but Tommy doesn't watch her to find out.
Instead he looks back down at his coffee, and thinks about what his father would say if he knew that Tommy's doing this. Man up, probably. Or Men Don't Do That. The refrains of his childhood and adolescence.
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