Adelaide Russel-Popov (adelaideprussel) wrote in commandhq, @ 2018-05-26 15:09:00 |
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Entry tags: | adelaide russel, p: mena, p: squid, sienna anderson |
Who: Sienna Anderson & Adelaide Russel-Popov
What: Colleagues unwinding after some stressful days
When: 24 May
Where: Adelaide's office
Rating: PG-13
There was a lot to be said for enjoying your work; it was definitely an important aspect of a healthy life. And since mental health was sort of her thing, Sienna knew the importance of balancing work and social life. Which was why, most of the time, her social life happened to be wrapped up in her work life.
Yes, she and Adelaide were colleagues, very good ones too, but they also happened to have a stellar connection that made for a wonderful friendship. One that, honestly, Sienna had found absolutely invaluable over the time they’d worked together. It was important to be able to share the work stresses and get real life off your chest at the same time.
The wine club that Paul had signed them up for had sent out an absolutely glorious rose wine last month, Sienna had swallowed everything she had ever had to say about that damn wine club solely because of this rose, one that she’d instantly gone out to buy a few bottles off, because Adelaide will love this.
There were a few nights when Sienna lived in her small room on the base; it wasn’t anything special, but it had a bed and she could wash up, and some nights she had a habit of burning the wick at both ends. Tonight wasn’t one of those nights, just a night when Paul had a business trip and her kids were adamant that they were old enough to go to their friends to spend the night and make it to school. Because God, mom, we’re practically adults was really selling that point.
But Sienna was giving it a go, allowing her children to either prove themselves trustworthy, or crash and burn at the first hurdle -she had high hopes, but low expectations. It did allow her to break out that glorious, no really wine and take the trip to Adelaide’s office, because of course they were both still in their offices, it wasn’t past nine or anything, wasn’t like they didn’t put in more hours than sane people.
Giving Adelaide’s door a tap, slipping inside after the brief announcement of intent, Sienna brandished the wine in one hand and the glasses in the other, “God, do I need this.”
Adelaide looked up from the files that she had on her desk when she heard a tapping at the door. She’d turned the main light on a couple of hours ago, but it did nothing to get rid of the tiredness that clung to her bones when she pulled late nighters like this. Klaus had dropped off some food, which was half-eaten on one side of her desk and a promise that he’d be waiting for her when she was done, somehow realising that tonight of all nights was not a night for him sitting in her office and being distracting while she was trying to work.
She look of relief that crossed her face when she saw that it was Sienna at her door was as obvious as the “Christ, me too,” response that she blurted out, closing the notepad and putting her pen down on the table. She raked her hand through her hair and rubbed the back of her neck, fingers digging into the muscles along her sub-occipital as if that would do anything to actually shift the headache.
“Has your day been as bad as mine?” she asked, getting to her feet and stretching, indicating that they could take this to the comfortable chairs or the aforementioned bean-bags of childish comfort but evil entrapment.
There were few times when Sienna felt like she couldn't do this work, few occasions when the people were so damaged that it made her despair for humanity in general. But lately, dealing with some of these poor people was making her wonder just how terrible people could be to each other. The hours were always long, and that wasn't hard for Sienna, yes she missed seeing her children constantly, but they were currently learning how to be independent themselves, so Sienna having the odd night where she didn't go home and stayed on base wasn't terribly unusual now.
On those nights, she very much liked unplugging from work in general, and Adelaide likely needed that just as much as she did. "Ever wonder how humanity came to this?" Placing the wine glasses on the table, Sienna cracked open the bottle to pour them both rather generous glasses to start. A little something to take the edge off, to unwind and get some relaxation. "I feel like I've been frowning all day."
Taking the chair for now, rather than the bean-bags, because Sienna didn't really want to just sleep in Adelaide's office tonight, Sienna slipped her shoes off while she sat, wiggling her stocking clad toes. "I'm just really needing to switch off for a while."
“All the time,” Adelaide said with a sigh, picking up the generous glass of wine that had been poured for her. She toed off her own shoes and cradled the glass as she sat down, tucking one leg underneath herself and just blowing out a breath. “Sometimes I wish I didn’t know about… any of this,” she waved a hand demonstratively to the room, the base in general, the plight of these supers, their histories and what had been done to some of them. On a more personal note, she wished she didn’t know that Klaus was a super, because she wouldn’t spend her downtime - and her work time - worrying that he’d slip up. That he would get caught and she would be called into scrutiny. And she had no one to confide in, she couldn’t - and wouldn’t - share this secret with anyone because it would put them in an equally awkward position. “I feel like I’m going to need some kind of wrinkle-reducing sleep mask at this rate.”
She offered her friend a grateful smile. “Me too,” she agreed. “But before we do, is there anything work-related you have to get off your chest first?”
It would be much more simple, in the long run, not knowing about Regiment, the ins and outs of this place, what some of these people had to survive and live through. Yes, Sienna could see her life, even just as a therapist, being much smoother if she had turned down the offer from the Government to work with Supers in need. Or evos, as they were being called now, the language changing, but the treatment largely remaining the same.
It made her worry for her children, who were approaching the ages where powers would develop if they were going to have any. Another weight on her mind while she attempted to help these people find some semblance of mental health. “It’d be a much more simplistic life, wouldn’t it. Ignorance is bliss afterall.” But would it? If it wasn’t superpowered people needing assistance, it would just be someone else, wouldn’t it?
“We’ll need the answer to anti-ageing serum quicker than most, frowning really isn’t good for anyone.” And surely, they had their share a good hundred times more than others. Adelaide’s question about getting something off her chest wasn’t unwarranted, each day brought new revelations from different people and some of it was heartbreaking.
“Just… the depths of human cruelty will never cease to amaze me. And deeply disturb me.” How humans could do such things to one another was astounding and shocking and just deeply terrifying on so many levels.
Adelaide rubbed her hand over her face again, the movement so second nature to her now that any previous sense of comfort she might have gained from it well and truly disappearing. It was just one of those things she did, now. She touched her face when she was tired, when she was stressed, when she tugged her glasses off at the end of yet another late night and dragged herself to her room to curl up in an equally exhausted Klaus’ arms and thanked whatever deities that may have existed that they’d gone through another day where he hadn’t been caught.
She was so tired.
“Frowning is the worst,” she agreed with a weak, half-hearted laugh. “Pretty sure if we looked hard enough we’d be able to find something that could help us.” Or someone. She thought of Klaus; he’d joked once that he was pretty sure he could live forever, manipulating his body to reverse the signs of ageing. That he could probably get rid of her wrinkles - not that she had any yet - if she wanted him to. He told her he was her very own fountain of youth and every time she smacked him with whatever she had to hand.
She sighed heavily, feeling the weight of the world resting on her shoulders - as Sienna did too, likely. “I know,” she breathed, “I- I just-” she shook her head, at a loss for words. “It’s getting harder and harder to look them in the eye and tell them that we’ll make things better for them, or that this place is safe when you hear what happened to them before.”
She’d worried, before, about her profession aging her. About her stress levels making her sick, or late nights taking their toll. She’d promised Paul that she wouldn’t put her career before her health, before their family or relationship. That if it started to get difficult in those ways, started to hurt her, then she’d walk away, find something else. And it wasn’t, not yet, not to the point where she couldn’t sleep or had an ulcer, where she let herself suffer for work.
It was just emotionally draining.
“And trying not to let the anger show, because you need to be professional and detached from the horrific things they tell you.” Because having an emotional response when they were the focus, it was just not the best reaction to have. It didn’t help that so many of these people affected were barely out of their 20’s. “I just feel so helpless with these ones, there’s so much they need and I’m not even sure that we can provide it for them.”
Safety and assurances weren’t a given here, in this place. Not really.
“Right,” Adelaide agreed with a heavy sigh. “I have some patients on my list that I genuinely feel would be better suited in an institution, with their abilities off, so the root of their trauma can be treated to make them better, to actually help them rather than to get them to a place where their abilities can be used to benefit the government.”
She thought, about Grey, and Kat to some extent though she had only spoken to her once. She thought about Vic and Danny, who were so irrevocably broken down by their experiences that they would struggle to function in society should they ever be released. She thought about Indigo, who had been with the Regiment so long she likely lost some objectivity about its purpose and her role in it. She thought about how this very place was the antithesis of what she wanted to believe in but by being here maybe she could do some small thing to help.
It was at times like this that Adelaide desperately wanted to confide in Sienna about all of her worries, not just the mutual ones they shared. But she wouldn’t do that, wouldn’t put Sienna in that position. Nor could she; it was not her secret to tell, but it was her burden to bear, hers to carry. And it would seem she had to carry it alone; she couldn’t exactly talk to Klaus about it, could she.
“Thankfully, we have each other and we have wine, and we can pretend that it’s a healthy coping mechanism.”
There were so many alternative options for treatment, ones where these people wouldn’t be put in a position to get better to get useful, places where their mental health would be put above their powers and the potential they had to do things. But all those places were just another cell in another building, because their genetics were considered less than someone else.
Sienna had long since kept her mouth shut about her political views, but she always voted in a manner than embraced the whole of the human race being valued as equal, powers or no powers. She could work in this place purely because she understood that she could do her little part to make these people whole in some way, even if it was just with little bandaids on the wounds.
“If only we lived in a world where those things were possible.” Pipe dreams, that’s what they were starting to feel like. Although there was another stir of pro-evo support since the latest genetic finding, but it was still something that needed to be pushed and rallied. And from her desk, Sienna couldn’t do that.
“It is not pretending, I am utterly sure that drinking wine, bitching about things that are small and inconsequential while unloading a burden temporarily does wonders for us. Even if it’s just until the wine headache starts and we need to repeat the day.” At the very least, it was good to talk to someone else who could understand. And wasn’t that what they were trying to get their patients to do?
Adelaide lifted her wine glass in a mock salute. “Amen,” she mumbled, lifting the glass to her lips and taking a healthy sip. She slumped back in the chair, rolling the stem of the glass between her fingers. “I wouldn’t change what I do for the world, I just wish it was a little easier.”
And wasn’t that the truth?
“How’s the family?” she asked, because the maudlin topic of their jobs could only keep them going for so long, and Sienna’s face always lit up when she got the chance to talk about her family. Adelaide was always happy to listen, too. After all, Sienna got the brunt of her frustrations with her husband more often than she probably should. But wasn’t that what best friends were for?
Undoubtedly, they were both doing what they loved, they wouldn't change what they did either. But sometimes it was just hard.
Joining Adelaide in a healthy dose of drinking, Sienna rolled her head a little, loosening up her neck muscles to try and disperse a little of the added tension in her.
"They're doing okay," Paul was working from home right then, which meant her dining room that was never used was an absolute catastrophe, and Sienna was glad that she wasn't home to see it right then. "My parents are foolishly volunteering to take Carlson and Willis on a vacation next month once school finishes." Her children weren't hellions -they were probably more sedate than she and Riley had been at that age, "I keep reminding them that they're in their 80's now, and my teenagers would likely kill them." Of course, weren't children better behaved for their grandparents.
"Maybe if they're visiting Ahn in San Diego I'll let them go, but sometimes my mother is a little too ambitious."
Adelaide laughed, “At least you’ll have them out of your hair for a while,” she commented, “and you know they probably behave perfectly with your mom and dad.” She pushed her hair back behind her ear. “My in-laws have been asking when they’ll be grandparents - again.” It was a monthly conversation; Klaus’ mother asking when she’d be a grandmother, when she’d have a baby to fuss over, why hadn’t they had a baby yet… A tiresome conversation. One that sometimes, Adelaide asked herself.
She sipped her wine again, “Did Willis ever decide if he was going to ask that girl out? Even if he’s still a baby, technically.”
Sienna couldn’t imagine how frustrating that must be for Adelaide, dealing with a needy would-be-grandmother. For the most part, Sienna had gotten a rather good deal with her parents -her mother understood the trials in having a child and never tried to rush her, although Sienna was very aware about waiting too long to start trying. “I don’t imagine that’s a fun conversation to have at all.” Paul’s father was just pleased when they’d moved closer to him so he could see the kids.
“He did,” Sienna had to smile softly around her wine glass, remembering the embarrassment Willis had pushed down and the twenty questions he’d had for them. “I drove him to her house, where he politely asked her if she would like to go to the movies with him, she said yes.” It was adorable really, for their little twelve-year-old romance. “Her dad is going to drive them there, it’s precious how he’s already fretting about what to wear.”
Adelaide’s shoulders lifted and she wrinkled her nose at the image. Willis was adorable, she’d only met him once but she’d been impressed with how they’d behaved at what most likely a really boring dinner for them with mom’s friend from work. “That’s adorable.” It did make her feel a little… broody. She’d been married for a few years and she certainly wasn’t getting any younger.
“And Carlson? How’s she doing?”
“Carlson is… heading into that teenager phase, where everything is private, she refuses to talk about anything, I’m trying my hardest not to go psychiatrist on her and just be her mom, but lord,” Sienna rolled her eyes a little, sipping from her glass. She remembered being a teenager, but she remembered it wildly differently.
Then again, she’d had Riley to go through it with, and Ahn had been close being. Three sisters doing all the same things together made it so much easier to deal with.
“The moment she starts asking to poke holes in herself I’m going to need to sit her down.”
“You mean she hasn’t already asked?” Adelaide distinctly remembered asking to have her ears pierced when she was about seven. She changed her mind pretty quickly after learning what was involved, someone shooting an earring through her ear seemed like a particularly painful thing for beauty. She’d done it anyway when she was a little older, had thought about going back to get them done a second time, but never quite got around to it. She supposed she was too old now.
She clicked her tongue and took another sip of her wine. “It’s pretty difficult to switch off the psychiatrist in you though,” she muttered into the glass. “I find myself doing it all the time.”
"She got her ears pierced when she was eleven. Because her best friend was getting them done and they both had to be the same." And because Sienna couldn't say too much about that, she had her own ears pierced, and a tattoo. Telling her daughter no just because wasn't really going to work, she'd need to choose those battles carefully. But Carlson had holes in her ears already, she could wait until she was sixteen before there were any more holes. "I just hope she never wants her belly button done. Because then she'll want to show it off." And Paul went nuts anytime Carlson wanted to wear anything skimpy.
But Adelaide had a point about turning off the psychiatrist brain. The number of times she'd started to do the same thing with Paul in the early years of their marriage before they'd agreed to leave as much of their work at work as they could. "You know you're in trouble when you approach your spouse like he's a patient."
Adelaide snorted. “It’s her job to drive her father insane,” she pointed out. “And to wear things he doesn’t approve of, but honestly she should at least wait until she’s a little older.” Oh, yes, Adelaide was going to be one of those mothers; age appropriate clothes all the time. Burlap sacks until she was eighteen. Klaus would be behind it, at least he would to her face. And he’d probably overrule her the moment her back was turned. She thought Klaus would make a good father, but… but they needed to get past this Regiment nonsense first.
She rolled the stem of her glass between her fingers again. “Do you?” she asked, eyes flicking to look at Sienna. “I’m not sure I ever really stopped.”
“I am hoping her teenage rebellion waits a few more years, so that I can ease Paul into it.” Especially given Willis was going to hit puberty soon and that was going to be one hell of a ride. Sienna would stop holding her breath once both of them were out the other side of it, but until then, she worried. Which she felt was natural, given all she knew about how the world treated supers.
Approaching Paul like a patient regularly got her ’the look’, just the same as when he tried to argue with her like she was a defence attorney. They were both a little guilty of it. “Only when he’s being very unreasonable, which I’ll be honest, is most of the time. I think it’s our duty, just to make sure they see how ridiculous they’re being.”
Nodding, Adelaide opened her mouth to ask how Sienna felt about the fact that soon she would have two teenagers and even though there was an element of hereditary powers, it wasn’t completely unheard of for the gene to crop up randomly in the family. She wondered just how it weighed on Sienna’s mind, the thought that her children could one day manifest an ability and be taken from her. “I’ll cross my fingers for you,” she settled on saying. “God knows Paul wouldn’t handle rebellion all that well.”
“I don’t think anyone’s ever going to be able to convince Klaus that he’s ridiculous,” she pointed out, head leaning back into the chair. “Whenever I use that word, his response is always, without fail, ‘yes, ridiculous in love’. Which was cute four years ago.” It didn’t help that him just being here was a constant source of stress on top of an already stressful job. And Garrett had mentioned knowing Klaus, the way he spoke was as if they’d been familiar before this base. And honestly that seemed… suspicious to her. But now wasn’t the time to think about that.
“He really wouldn’t,” Paul wasn’t great with the rebellion, he was unfortunately used to logic in illogical arguments, any time Carlson made just a lick of sense, Paul would fold. And Sienna was trying to work out if it was one of Paul’s flaws or something Carlson was interestingly good at. Which was, indeed, something that Sienna regularly worried about, and what she might have to do when faced with the possibility.
Klaus seemed to be quite the ‘manchild’ at times, something that Sienna hated thinking never mind saying. She wasn’t aware anyone stayed in that phase past college, nevermind marriage and successful careers. “Yes, I can imagine the novelty has more than worn off.” But then Sienna didn’t know Klaus terribly well, as much as she was friendly with Adelaide, it had only been recently that Sienna would’ve had the ability to interact with her friend's husband. “Although, I’m sure him working on the same base is a nice change?” Or somewhat suffocating.
“Mm,” Adelaide agreed absently, Klaus was something special to her and she loved him dearly but sometimes it was trying. She thought about when he brought her dinner versus when he came in and talked about his day. She just drew in a breath and lifted a shoulder. “It’s lovely to be able to see him more often,” she agreed. “But I remember why it’s never a good idea to mix relationships and work. Though I’m not about to complain. That’s not what these sessions are for.”
“Hmm,” Sienna hummed with a small smile, “we’ll pencil you in for a session sometime next week.” Although she knew that Adelaide was in a significantly similar position as Sienna with a brimming caseload with troubling cases.
“But no, we’re meant to be unwinding right now. God, we need to be able to go shopping some time. That’s the best form of therapy.” Just two hours off the base in the city could do them good.