#fluffhoof

So first off, I'm going to go ahead and be less than modest and say that I was really, really proud of this part. At this stage in writing TWTCH I was on Tumblr and people were really (REALLY) responding to the story on here, so there was kind of a pressure to get it right. Considering that I'm not a psychologist in the slightest, I wanted the sessions with Dr Maddie to at least seem realistic. I still think she talks more than a normal shrink would in a session, but what the hey.

I was especially proud at how many people on Tumblr posted that last bit in quote posts. Whenever something I wrote actually got singled out and quoted on here I knew I was doing something right. "What do you suppose love is, if not all those things at once?" was probably the line that got quoted most often from the entire story.

This scene was actually one of those authorial cheats, where I had some readers and reviewers and my own common sense telling me that Kurt and Dave's growing feelings were suspect because of the situation that they were in. This was my way of addressing those doubts in context, having the character face it dead on. (Kind of like how Ryan gets Glee to acknowledge the show's issues in throw-away lines. Except I don't think I was acknowledging a problem just to ignore it, the way he seems to. Those doubts did remain at least a little bit after this scene. Same with Kurt's sense of guilt. I needed SOMEone to tell Kurt that none of this was his fault and have him actually believe it, so the first half of this scene showed that, but even afterward the guilt didn't just vanish. Emotions don't work like that. Of course we KNOW we shouldn't feel the way we do a lot of the time, but knowing it doesn't make the feelings go away.) 

So! How many of Kurt's feelings were real, and how many were the result of the situation he was in? Did Kurt care for Dave because of Dave, or because Kurt felt responsible for him? It's a valid concern, and a lot of h/c stories (whether fic or canon) don't really acknowledge that there's something to worry about there. Two people who meet and fall in love in chaotic circumstances may have nothing between them once life settles down around them, you know?

This is an idea I touch on in a few different stories, most prominently a Star Trek Reboot McCoy/Chekov story I wrote, where they have the conversation flat out. Is it love or is it trauma? The answer in that story was, 'they're not mutually exclusive. Why can't it be both?' And that's what I was going for here. You can absolutely go through hell with someone and come out the other side loving them, but you have to be sure that that's what it is. That they both exist, and you're not confusing one for the other. I also needed Kurt to hear that love is a mixture of a lot of feelings, not some sacred emotional lightning bolt that strikes once and only once. Because love is all those things at once, it's completely possible to love more than one person truly and genuinely. That idea helped Kurt come to terms with the fact that he could love Blaine the way he did but still love Dave. It doesn't diminish what his feelings for Blaine were or make them invalid somehow. 

Incidentally, Doctor Maddie was played by Madhuri Dixit in my head, which I kind of gave away by naming her Madhuri. Also her surname, Cheemalavagupalli, was the surname of a client I worked with at my old job, and I loved it so much I have always wanted to use it for a character. I still remember sitting there at my desk practicing how to say the name over and over again before I picked up the phone to call him. :D