"You say you want some sort of payment for your work. 'What would you do?' sort of thing. Well, I am curious, what do /I/ have to do to get what I want from you?"
“If I could grant you your deepest desire; what would be your exchange?”
The man, the one to move and walk around him like a dog to wag its tail in trying to get a stranger’s attention, deserved naught but correction of his own credo he would get when only words to so leisurely direct themselves at the therapist’s person to get reaction and - perhaps - suitable answer. The welling possibility of a question to arise of the ‘why’ it was important, ( why now ? why ever ? ), to be brushed aside as unimportant in whatever they called a relationship between them to reach heights Clark was inclined to keep - and Lorne himself could not offer any less than a thought about.
A suitable asset, a useful tool for experiments, a valuable piece of actual information - that was all the doctor would see in this hovering creature of naught but disappointing weakness.
The perfect mind.
One as tribulated by emotions and desires ( for him to be loved, for himself to love him ) as this one? If only there was possibility to engage in truthful laughter, likely: ridiculed and derided Clark would have been, from the spot, from the beginning of such faithful interaction that had been droven past and beyond anything a normal human would only find acceptable in snivelling form and wails of ‘ leave me be ! ‘ with time that passed and now turned to a point Lorne found just all too entertaining.
Truly, he was not a normal human being.
“I decidedly believe that you are not inclined to hear a truthful answer from my lips.”
Oh, but he would - would indulge him in ways only shown perhaps two times over decades the therapist already wandered this earth. Would give him a piece and bit just of what there was hidden inside his mind. Emotionless, deprived of any recognition of such feeble feelings, divested, robbed perhaps, of any judgement to only be offered before those to seek his aide and support. He was a vile man - one to find a dedication his own that many ( far too many, countless in a number, if there was desire to know it at all ) would break and shatter on within a mere few years. And those to come out atop?
Frankly, few they were to even only dare in reaching for his stead. “But if you so desire.”
A few steps he would take to the other man standing just a bit away, placing files on the table at his side he had only flipped through before ( such a good dog this one was, fetching work so willingly ) and mere standing a few inches apart from reverberating aura to finally receive what his dear colleague such truly thought to be rightfully his own. “Do you know what the emotions of humanity are, that - in comparison to others - are to be accounted as the strongest?” Eight of them, eight far worthwhile in their profession.
And himself? Himself did know - did experience - but only two. “Let me offer them up.”
Not all of them. Two - joy and wrath - to be seen in steel blue eyes shining with twisted delight for the moment eyes direct themselves up towards expecting form, searching, pinning, reading one’s core, in trying to tear the soul out of rotten piece of flesh. In shattering mind and this last bit of spirit in strong grasp and grind to dust just what they thought to have, but did not deserve.
How eyes of his - as lifeless as before - could change in color to be nearly devouring, just as much as this smile found itself on edge between sanity and insanity ( found itself torn yet so unified between two far too different emotions ). He smiled it quite sweetly - a sugar-coated poison in veins and transport in words to drip from tongue. Only for the blink of an eye, only for a moment of a breath taken into lungs likely struggling with processing something unknown, something far beyond perfection that it was shattered and mend anew.
Imperfect - this man was everything but what he sought to be.
“ For you to die~ “
And worthless it was, the very pursue, only the thought that maybe - surely ! - there could be something; something to happen and stand before them. The flash of mindless emotional valuation was drawn away as fast as it plastered itself on grimace such unlike. The strongest emotions of humanity, eight of a kind, those to be recognized by whoever came across them ( Robert Plutchik: fear, anger, sadness, joy, disgust, trust, anticipation, surprise ).
How to deal with it? - If none are present, none to be found, none to be expected - and yet their perfect show, their perfect display, to shatter the one with glee to brim, upon an answer quite such unexpected, as he did not want to hear it like this?! How to deal with it? “ Now leave me be. “
And it was brushed aside into nothingness.
