WHERE: Dr Russel's office WHEN: [backdated] Shortly after arrival WHAT: Sterling's first session with Dr Russel doesn't end in death. Counts as a success. STATUS: Complete VIEW WARNINGS: Allusions to neglect, death and murder.
The therapy angle was a piece of bullshit. Sterling hadn’t been at all interested in it when he was younger, he sure as hell wasn’t looking to sit back and tell some stranger about his shitty upbringing and the ease of falling into his career. It wasn’t an issue anyway. It was a job.
But Scott was adamant that they need to deal with things, attempt to stop offenses at Limbo sending him back to prison, for good this time. Sterling was still weighing the pros and cons. He was aware that there was a degree of freedom here, slightly more than the prison, and while he was constantly watching his back it wasn’t entirely needed here. Sure, they all seemed like wet behind the ears snivelling idiots, but none of them were angling to just blow up. Not that he could tell so far.
He didn’t see any problems being solved by talking to a head-shrinker.
But he was jumping through the hoops, and since there’d been an appointment set up, Sterling left the shooting range in time to make it to the office for Dr Russel early enough that he wouldn’t be seen to be reticent about this stupidity.
Maybe he’d nail down sleeping with eyes open though.
Sterling Hunter’s file was thick, but useless. It had a lot of information on him but none of that actually told her anything that she needed to know. It gave her a pretty decent idea of his youth, times charted in foster care, and she had all the transcripts from his arrest, time in custody, his visitations and meetings in jail… but none of it actually gave her the information that she needed. Sterling, amongst others, was one of those that was at a very high risk of reoffending when they left the institution here - if they ever left. A number of people were here following committing a separate crime to the crime of being born. Those who were registered criminals might not have the same opportunities to leave if the SEA passed; they might need to be kept here for even longer.
Adelaide wasn’t sure the long term impacts of this whole programme had been considered very thoroughly.
Twisting her wedding ring, Adelaide got to her feet and crossed over to the door, opening it and poking her head out of her office. “Sterling?” she called, a warm smile crossing her face when she spotted him. “Come on in and take a seat, do you want a drink- tea or coffee?”
He’d spent a lot of time in and out of offices like this when he was younger; guidance offices, principal’s offices, child services offices, they were all the same bullshit then and he really wasn’t expecting to feel different about it all, thirty years later.
But these were the hoops, and off he went. Even as he dragged himself into the office, thanking whatever lords there were that he didn’t need to lie on some damn couch, because then he would just go to sleep, and fuck whatever Scott had to say. “No,” it took him a few beats, because Sterling was not used to it at all, before he added, “thank you, I’m fine.” He didn’t intend on talking excessively, so a drink wasn’t overly required. Sterling had manners, he just never really cared enough to use them.
And this was likely going to be a big test of his patience, which was already very thin, and not acting out -which was again, not something he was used to.
Adelaide watched carefully as Sterling moved into her office. She wondered if he would have been better suited to Dr Romero - who was definitely more experienced - but… well, Adelaide always was one to rise to a challenge. And Sterling was most definitely going to be a challenge. She tucked her hair behind her ear and closed the door, eyes catching the time before she followed and sat in the large arm chair opposite Sterling.
She’d recently had some bean bags delivered, large comfortable chairs that she took no shame in sitting in when she was alone, shoes toed off and paperwork surrounding her, soft jazz music in the background.
With a click of the remote, she paused the soft music that normally played in the background. Sterling certainly didn’t strike her as the type to appreciate the ambient sounds of a rainforest, but to Adelaide the room suddenly seemed vacuously silent.
“Thank you for agreeing to come,” she said, holding up a hand, “I’m aware that you’re mandated to be here, and that you’re doing as Handler Deacon has requested. But still, I appreciate it.” And a little thanks never hurt anyone.
She shifted, settling where she was. “My name is Adelaide Russel, you can call me Adelaide, or Dr Russel, whichever you’d prefer. I’d like to start by asking you why you think you’ve been sent here.”
Ambient sounds would likely have made him check the hell out really fast, but he was mandated to be there, and he assumed that meant physically and not just in the sense that he totally was not there. But Dr Russel already had that calm, patient tone going on, like it was practised and easy -which probably exactly that, because she was a damn psychiatrist.
At least she knew he was here because he had to be.
“I’ve been sent because the nature of my previous employment makes people worry I’m a loose cannon that just likes inflicting pain, possible because of deep childhood trauma. Probably to figure out if I will just lose it and stab someone with a fork in the cafeteria at some point.” Which, okay, he might. The drama around here was already hitting his limit and that was just on the network.
“So, I have to come here and talk about bullshit that happened or I’m going back to my cosy little cell in a super-max prison. That about right?”
Adelaide’s eyebrow arched. “Well, will you?” she asked, “Just lose it and stab someone with a fork?” She tilted her head a little, “I suppose in lieu of any more deadly weapons a fork does the same job.”
Crossing one leg over the other, she looked at him carefully, watching the bored, disinterested look of careful nonchalance on his face. The way that he had clearly been through this more than once and had never once seen the benefit of talking about things. She supposed not everyone did; talking therapies were very useful when correctly applied. If they were just used as a tool to shut someone up and get a diagnosis then they were inefficient. They were harmful when forced on people as a quick fix.
“But yes, largely you’re right. My job is to assess and support you in your adjustment and ongoing wellbeing here.” She drew in a breath. “Which means you’ll be seeing quite a lot of me, I’m afraid.” She knew it was unappealing to him. She had a few patients that were unappealing to her, but still it was her job.
She twisted her wedding ring before reaching for her notepad, resting it on the arm of the chair and not immediately picking up the pen. “But we don’t have to talk about your traumatic childhood right now. A large part of these sessions will be directed by you at first; what you do or don’t want to talk about.”
She glanced at the wall. “Some people like to play chess, or just sit quietly. That’s fine, too. For a while.” The indication was that Adelaide had all the patience she needed because eventually everyone talked.
He could sense that this might be the longest hour of his life, “Anything is a weapon if you use it right.” And sure, that was probably a little on the side of ‘don’t release into society’, and he should maybe dial that back a bit with the shrinks. “However, I’m not a psychotic homicidal lunatic, no.” Which, wasn’t really the question, he knew. Nor did it answer the question, but he couldn’t rightly say that at some point he wouldn’t just stab someone if they were really asking for it.
His temper wasn’t exactly solid at the best of times.
But adjustment and wellbeing, from one prison to the next, Sterling wasn’t sure just how that was meant to be dealt with in general. He got that all the other little agents were Supers, ripped from a life or even voluntarily placed in the system. Most of them likely had some option of leaving said system if someone with two brain cells decided to treat supers like they were people and not third rate beings. Sterling didn’t really have that fall back.
“I don’t want to talk. Like, period.” Because it did nothing, sharing is caring was wiped out a good long time again, and Sterling learned that talk was nothing but bullshit words. Why waste the energy? “I don’t play chess either.” There was probably some kind of meaning in that, but honestly, he’d just never learned how.
Adelaide lifted a shoulder in concession. That was a good point. Anything could be a weapon if you needed it to be. Though she did wonder how someone might use something genuinely innocuous, such as a kitten, or a small cardboard box, to kill someone. Not that she would ask Sterling; she was sure he would have some ideas and she didn’t wish to open that Pandora’s Box in their first session. Still, it was something to unpack; the violent tendencies, what had happened that caused such an apparent dissociation. He was a puzzle, a mystery, but she knew the reward wasn’t in solving it. She was good at judging those that would be receptive to help and those that wouldn’t.
Sterling was one of those that if she even got anything out of him, it would be a miracle. He was in for the long haul, though, even if the SEA was passed he would remain here with the other criminals, those who were considered too dangerous.
“I wouldn’t have pinned you as a psychotic lunatic,” she told him honestly. “You’re too smart for that. Wouldn’t have lasted as long on the outside as you did if you had been a lunatic.”
She looked at him and wet her lower lip. “I assume you’ve been through this before, the whole therapy rigmarole?” The ‘therapit’, as one of her clients called it repeatedly. “I imagine it gets tiring, people trying to pry into a childhood you’ve got no desire to relive.”
He was rarely viewed as smart. Sure, he had some sense, he picked things up, taught himself anything he needed to really learn. But, on paper, he was a high school dropout who got below average grades and bounced around numerous schools. Even if he had stayed at school, only the last year of his high school career showed any kind of effort or development, when he tried to at least do something worthwhile.
Even then, that was short lived.
But he didn’t bother commenting, because he wasn’t about to thank someone for actually making that consideration. And she wasn’t wrong about the therapy bit either -they tried it after his mother died, and then again when his grandmother had her stroke, it was mandatory within the foster system to at least have that first one on file too.
“Yeah, it does. It’s also entirely pointless, because talking about whatever happened isn’t exactly a magical cure.” Discussing his feelings -which, frankly, he made every effort to not have- on the messed up situation his homelife in the first seventeen years of his life happened to be, he really didn’t think it would cause him to unlearn the twenty five years of lessons afterwards.
“No,” she agreed, “It’s not a magical cure. Talking therapies take a lot of time - in some cases - to even have an impact. And ingrained habits are called ingrained for a reason.” She pressed her lips together, eyes still tracking him, watching him in the chair. He had obviously had a lot of practise at schooling himself into something that was very hard to read; most of the people who came through Adelaide’s doors understood schooling their expressions but not the more subtle aspects of their body language, not their micro-expressions and the things that really gave things away.
Sterling was exceedingly difficult to read. She knew she had her work cut out with this one.
“Though sometimes talking about it helps someone else understand where you came from, how that resulted in the way your life unfolded. And it can help make an assessment as to your future, including details that would be pertinent and considered should the SEA pass and you be up for parole in the future.”
Parole, Sterling would’ve laughed at it, the mere idea that it might be an option. But then, there was that sense again.
It couldn’t be proven, not in any legal way, but he was a super so the law barely applied to him and people could just insinuate something remotely linked and that would be enough. As it was they knew about fourteen people he’d killed, four of those were during his arrest. They could potentially find some link to another three and if they barked up the right tree they could find the hits that had involved bullets, garrotes and normal knives.
“Why do I need to verbalise everything you already have in my file?” He knew there would be gaps, especially after he left foster care. He’d barely kept an actual job so his social security number wasn’t even trackable for records, but there were pieces, he knew that much. “Fairly certain that plays into the psychopath angle.”
“Because you don’t learn anything about a person from their file,” Adelaide answered. “I’m not asking you to boast, but I’d like to understand the gaps, and to know what really happened. We both know that these,” she indicated to the bunch of files on her desk, “are an incomplete record at best. And foster care records are hardly reliable.” She knew of more than a few super kids who had passed through the foster care system who had inaccurate records through lack of care on behalf of government staff who weren’t always paid enough to care about the children under their guardianship.
She twirled her pen around her fingers. “But I’m not expecting anything out of this first session. I wanted to talk with you about what would be happening and what was expected of you. And, to some extent, to give you the opportunity to ask questions - if you had any.”
There was a slight shift in expression, a frown tugging between his brows. He wasn’t sure what the difference between boasting and filling in the gaps would be -filling in too many gaps would likely just lead to being thrown back in a cell, and if that were the case Sterling wasn’t really jumping at the thought of doing so.
It was a fluke he was out at all; riots weren’t really his thing, and he wasn’t even entirely sure why he stepped in to stop Owens from grabbing the nurse, other than the fact that he’d never been entirely sociopathic to the point of blind murderous rage. The scalpel injury to his arm hadn’t stopped him breaking Owens’ nose, cheek and jaw when he introduced the man to the nearest wall, and the stitches weren’t exactly straight considering the nurse who’d been attacked was the one fixing him up.
So all things considered, one spur of the moment action landed him here, and likely one slip of the tongue could send him back. He wasn’t thrilled that it might mean talking about his mother, or his grandmother, or those houses between home and the street.
He especially didn’t want to talk about the Wright’s. “My only question would be ‘do I have to’, but I’m not in the habit of asking things I know the answer to.” Because yes, he had to. His handler said jump and… Sterling had to jump.
Adelaide caught the slight shift in his expression but her own stayed still, patient and calm as she waited for him to work through his own thought processes. A lot of people didn’t have questions to ask her and those that did often wanted to ask the ones they thought would trip her up: why are you here, what made you want to work with supers. Sterling, however, seemed to know that regardless of what he asked he’d not get what he wanted which was out of theses sessions.
“You’re a step ahead even coming to these sessions,” she told him honestly. “So despite the fact that you’re not interested in talking, merely coming to these sessions is a good step.”
She glanced at the clock. They still had quite a large amount of time left but she knew that there was no way she’d be getting him to talk in this session, not about prison, not about his job, not about his foster homes. Those conversations were for a much, much later date.
“We still have half an hour,” she said. “So, is there anything you’d like to talk about? It doesn’t have to be related to your past.”
Was there anything he’d talk about?
Sterling wasn’t a talkative person. Not in the least. He didn’t keep much company outside, he had maybe three people he spoke to on a regular basis, and one was his main job handler, so the extent of their conversations was greatly limited. And he wasn’t looking to open any cans of worms by asking about access to things here.
So beyond the weather… “Pretty sure there’s nothing.” He made a slight face, possibly the first intentional relaxing of his composure, just to indicate that there really wasn’t anything. “How much of this do you gotta tell my handler anyway?” Although at least something popped up that might be relevant to something.
He was fairly sure, if Scott Deacon was going to know everything he told Dr Russel -if he ever got to the stage of telling her anything- it would shape how he told it.
Adelaide perked up a little at the question. Not many people asked that, most accepted that there was no such thing as privacy. She folded her hands together and thought about how best to answer the question.
“He can, at any time, request access to your notes and I have to give it to him,” she said. “But I’ve never had a handler come and demand information of me. I don’t actively have to tell him anything unless I’m concerned about your safety or the safety of others.” And that was the truth. “So, unless you tell me that you’re going to harm yourself or that you’re intending on harming someone else - for real, rather than hypothetically stabbing someone annoying with a fork, I don’t have to tell Scott anything without him asking me to provide information.”
She took a breath before continuing. “Usually, handlers ask to make sure that their agents are attending their sessions and if anything - in our professional opinion - needs to be highlighted to them. And it’s my decision as to what I decide is pertinent to share and what isn’t.”
Leaning forward, Adelaide met Sterling’s eyes.
“I know you don’t have any trust in a place like this. I wouldn’t either. But as much as I can,” and her words were heavy with the sincere weight of her own convictions, “I protect the privacy of those that come to see me.”
He knew that just because no handler had ever come demanding to see notes didn’t mean that one wouldn’t, at some point. Like if an agent happened ram something blunt and sturdy through a brain cavity. Not that he’d be talking in non-hypotheticals around about now. So while Scott could ask about him, and Dr Russel would have to tell anything he wanted, she wasn’t in the habit of actively seeking handlers out.
Unless Sterling had a mental break down and decided suicide was better than homicide -and he knew it wasn’t so he didn’t see that being a risk.
Sterling offered a slow nod, since he had about a week to decide how to play this it was important to figure out the angles, how much to share, how honest to be, how vague to keep things, because he knew, ultimately, that in a few weeks time, if he was still being obstinate, they very well might just call it quits and cut their losses. He might be able to drag this out, but he’d need to give up something eventually.
The plus side seemed to be that, even if she was working in a place like this, Dr Russel was a serious enough doctor. “Good to know.” Didn’t mean Sterling would be any less flippant.
Adelaide just nodded her head and leaned back in the chair, waiting for a few long moments before she just lifted her shoulder. “Perhaps,” she offered, “you’d like to select a book to occupy the last twenty five minutes of your session?” Better that than the two of them continue to sit in stony silence. He could read and she could get on with some paperwork. She knew full well that she wasn’t going get anything else out of him for the day.
What she’d gotten so far was better than she’d hoped, so she would mark this session down as a success.