A short follow-up to the Jonelias thing from earlier:

***

It was their third session - or was it fourth? They bled into one another after a while, even though they remained the one focal point in the hazy, dreamlike reality Jon pretended to inhabit most of the time.

“Tell me about your dreams,” Bouchard had asked, and Jon did. The words poured out of him in a seemingly endless torrent of visions: places he hadn’t been, people he hadn’t met, feelings that were not his own. And fear, ever-present, debilitating, paralyzing fear.

“How does dwelling on them help me?” Jon asked irritably some time later. “They’re just dreams.”

Bouchard’s mouth twitched, settling into a smile.

“So they are,” he said. “Would you like to talk about something else?”

“No,” Jon said, sinking in the back of his chair. “I would like you to tell me what’s wrong with me. And I would like you to help me, instead of wasting my time. And my money.”

Despite Jon’s rudeness, Bouchard would not stop smiling.

“If this is a waste of time,” he said, “Why do you keep coming back here?”

Why.

“I don’t know,” Jon said, haltingly. A few moments ago he had so many words at his disposal, spilling freely from his lips; now there was nothing to choose from. He was empty. He felt hollowed out, now that—whatever it was—was out in the open, pinned to paper through Bouchard’s quick, elegant handwriting.

He didn’t know. But he came back the next week, and then two weeks after that.

“You’re quiet today,” Bouchard observed.

Jon rubbed his temples. The headaches were getting worse.

“I still don’t know why I’m here,” Jon mumbled. “I just—I feel there is something you’re not telling me.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know,” Jon said slowly, quietly. “Something about yourself, or something about me.” Bouchard’s gaze, heavy and piercing; Jon shuddered. “It’s just a feeling.”

“A feeling?”

“Stop asking me useless questions,” Jon snapped. “Why—what do you want from me?”

“Why would I want anything from you?” Bouchard said. “You came to me, Jon. Not the other way around.”

Jon groaned. “This is exceedingly frustrating.”

Mercifully, Bouchard remained silent for once. He just sat there, watching Jon with an enigmatic smile, saying very little for the remainder of their time.

They shook hands as they parted ways. It was part of the ritual: Bouchard’s firm grip, the warmth of his fingers as they lingered—not too long, never too long, but just long enough for Jon to wonder if he was imagining it, if there was something, anything there, behind the doctor’s pale eyes and the curve of his smile.

(He dreamt of those eyes, sometimes. Watching him from afar, without judgement, without emotion, but with some terrible hidden purpose. He never brought it up during their sessions.)

The fingers lingered, their warmth seeping into Jon’s skin. And with them, something sharp. Bouchard remained professional, distant, polite; but right there in Jon’s hand lay a piece of paper.

A date. A time. An address.

Solid, written down, real. It had to be real. He held it in his hand until it became crumpled beyond recognition.

He couldn’t remember the last time he got to hold onto something real.