#compulsions tw

Six year old Halle Bullook (not yet Lidner) remembers thinking hard about her family tree. She knows these things: She is the middle child and only sister between the three Bullook children. There are two brothers. Her older one is named Andrew and her younger brother is named Chase.

Andrew’s lifelong dream is to be an attorney and Chase is up to doing anything. Mom doesn’t fret over it (“children have a long time to figure out what they want to do”). Halle doesn’t like to think about it. Growing up is scary.

Halle’s mother wants to put rollers in Halle’s hair for first grade picture day. Halle chops at it with the scissors in the kitchen.

Andrew and Chase think it’s cool. When Lidner does the same thing at thirteen, they cringe and say that they like her hair better longer. Her mother shakes her head whenever she remembers that Halle’s hair is barely touching her chin. 

(In retrospect, this and her strange obsession with Jasmine in Aladdin ought to have given a hint as to her sexuality.)

Her parents divorced when she was 13 and a half. Mom moved to Louisville, Dad stayed in Boston. Andrew went with mom, Chase oscillated between her and Dad, and she stayed with dad. Dad marries a nice woman named Nicole, who --- as far as Halle is concerned --- is Halle’s mother. 

Halle comes out as a lesbian when she’s 18 and going to BU. Nicole cries a little bit and says that she’s so glad that Halle is comfortable enough with her to say this. Dad hugs them both.

Halle takes Nicole’s maiden name as her pseudonym when she joins the SPK. 

She kicks herself (figuratively and literally speaking) for bedding Kira’s spokeswoman --- without something between them, to say the least. It’s a move uncharacteristic of her. Years of ingrained, Pavlovian training about protected sex has gone out the window, as of about an hour ago.

She jumps into the shower, and showers three times more before she feels somewhat clean. She pushes the lever of the shower to 12 o’clock with her foot and scrubs her feet down with a washcloth. 

Takada doesn’t make things much better when she tells the others that she’s okay with just Lidner around. She directs Lidner to take them to a coffee shop. It’s quiet and dark. Private. A nice place to die.

She stirs the creamer into her coffee three times clockwise, four counter-clockwise. She won’t die yet.

“Takada-san, if I may ask, what are we doing here?” she bites.

“Grabbing coffee. Do I need an ulterior motive to do so with my bodyguard?” Takada asks innocently, raising her eyebrows.

Lidner counts the sips she takes. Breathe in and out. Dodge the question. “You’re aware of my qualifications. This isn’t something I’m used to.”

Takada nods slowly. “I would imagine. But a woman doesn’t get to those positions easily…”

“Neither does a woman who is Kira’s mouthpiece.”

“Mouthpiece…,” Takada repeats. Lidner’s heart races. “Interesting that you say that.”

Christ. “Representative, rather.”

“I gather that you know the… connotations of ‘mouthpiece.’”

“I don’t have a Bachelor’s in English, but I do. Forgive me, Takada-san. It was the first word that came to mind.”

She nods slowly. “Of course. You should feel free to speak your mind.”

Just don’t give me a reason to kill you, you mean, Lidner thinks. Lidner settles for nodding and placidly drinking her coffee. “Excuse me.”

Okay, okay, okay, relax. Binary: one, two, four, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256… In Lidner’s distraction, she forgot that she shouldn’t turn off the faucet with freshly washed hands.

Again.

She’ll be okay. She’ll be okay. She can call her mom and they can talk, mom can give her advice for dealing with OCD.

She sits down across from Kira’s spokeswoman. She almost asks if Takada meant for this to be a date. She sighs a little inside --- her and Takada could’ve gotten along well in a different universe. 

It’s all right. She’ll call her mom tonight and they can talk. She’ll be okay.

Intrusive thoughts. Just lots of images and urges and thoughts that are so horrifying and contrary to Aziraphale’s morals pop into his head all the time and no amount of trying will make them go away. When it gets really bad, anything that reminds him even distantly of these thoughts can be a trigger, and if he isn’t careful he can get lost in his head struggling to get rid of these thoughts for hours at a time. But what helps with this are mindful activities that keep his hands occupied and his mind focused on the present, which I feel is how he got into doing stage magic. He gets so focused on executing the tricks and being in the moment that it allows him to forget (or at least sufficiently ignore) the intrusive thoughts until they subside on their own.

Also consider Aziraphale getting involved with other mindful crafts, like knitting.

I feel like at some point Aziraphale would also have distressing intrusive thoughts about Crowley. Cruel whispering thoughts and urges implanted into his mind, saying this is a demon, you must smite harm hurt, along with old prejudices popping into his head that he knows are untrue but somehow he’s thinking them anyway -- the thought of harming Crowley in any way shape or form is simply sickening, and Aziraphale argues against the thoughts constantly, presents all the evidence he has at his disposal (over six thousand years of it) that Crowley isn’t evil, that those are all lies, but of course OCD refuses to listen to logic. The guilt of thinking such terrible things about his friend is crushing, so Aziraphale starts avoiding Crowley out of fear that he will succumb to those awful thoughts and hurt him. Of course that just makes him even more miserable, but the shame prevents him from telling Crowley what’s wrong. Eventually Crowley knocks on the bookshop door himself, and when Aziraphale, teary-eyed and shaking, finally confesses, Crowley holds him and says I’m not angry, angel. I know you never actually believed those things, and I know that you would never hurt me or anyone. Those thoughts don’t represent who you are or what you believe. 

Compulsions. okay but also Aziraphale fearing that his relationship with Crowley will get Crowley punished by either Hell or Heaven and dealing with the crushing guilt that comes with that, and the rituals he sets up in an attempt to avoid such a thing from ever happening. Spending hours brooding over short notes from Gabriel trying to determine if the wording of that particular sentence means Gabriel knows something he shouldn’t, or combing repeatedly through his memories of the Arrangement to see if he’d ever somehow accidentally betrayed to the Powers That Be that it was he, Aziraphale, who had carried out that particular temptation in France instead of Crowley who was in China at the time... just lots of questions of what if, what if, what if. Through this, he also tends to blame and beat himself up over any small thing that goes wrong. 

When Aziraphale is overworked or overtired it gets worse, and he finds himself slipping into his head more and more often. That relaxing sit-down with a book becomes three fraught hours of second-guessing his actions from an event that happened two centuries ago, or he’s at the Ritz with Crowley but can’t focus on the conversation because every time he blinks he sees horrifying images behind his eyelids, and the crowds of people at the tables around them aren’t helping to clear his muddled mind. But then he’ll be roused by a touch to the shoulder, worried yellow eyes beneath dark sunglasses and a questioning “Angel?”, and they’ll pay the bill, drive back to the bookshop in the Bentley while Aziraphale presses his flushed face into the cool window and tries to focus on Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy playing softly on the radio instead of the frantic nest of bees in his brain. He can’t stomach any more food that night, but Crowley miracles up a pair of pyjamas for him (tartan, though Crowley would deny it if you asked) and grooms the tension out of Aziraphale’s wings until the angel manages to fall into a sound sleep.

Just... Aziraphale with OCD. It traps him in a snarled web of indecision, terror, and guilt, and the abuse he receives from Heaven only worsens it. And later, when he realizes his past mistakes, the crushing remorse that that causes makes it difficult for him to forgive himself and move forward. But he works at it, and learns to break out of those lines of thinking, and it’s never a quick nor easy process, but he’s getting there. He’s staying afloat.