Freud and his Friends -12 - Mind Tricks
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No couple actually means to screw up so badly as to need professional help. Yet many of them do manage to find the most inventive ways to exceed all possible skeptical prognoses. While the numerous tactics they employ to achieve this feat hold much interest, and can fuel both amusement and despair, there is one question which rises above all these technical investigations, and in it resides the core of the couple's future: Why are they still together at this point?
That was the question posed to the couple in question, mid way through their extended therapy session. Oh, Frank had listened to their recounting of the "incident" and asked some questions, and gathered an opinion, and tried to introduce what clarity he felt they could accept into the creative jumble the two men made of their relationship through its short two-year existence. But after all that was said and done, questions asked, sometimes evasive and sometimes startlingly sincere answers given, one question remained:
"So why are you still together?"
Frank was familiar with the facial expression both faces reflected - 'Are you kidding? Are you saying it's all meaningless? You just don't ask those kinds of questions like that!'
If he discovered anything in his practice, it was that many questions were implicitly tabooed by an unspoken social consensus. Usually, the uncomfortable, uncompromising, blunt questions - most of them the very questions worth asking.
The looks started to shift. First Harry, and much more slowly Draco, begun to consider the question. Draco seemed to be considering it only so far as to find a way out of answering it. He was going to evade, that much was clear in his eyes and body language. Harry was going to try and answer - the question, for him, being close to the surface for a while now.
"Mmm… well there are a number of good reasons. Al the good things in the past, our plans together, love, commitment - I'm not going to forsaken this relationship just because there are some problems. And they are temporary, right? So that would be silly."
"The problems are temporary, Harry. Their consequences won't be. The problems' roots won't disappear. These are just the symptoms you're seeing. Tell me, what do you suppose the disease is?"
The brunette looked at the blond, ill at ease, speculative, apologetic.
"That Draco isn't happy with me. I'm not sure I'm what Draco needs."
"And why do you think that is? Could you tell it to Draco?"
"I obviously don't give him," he turned, "you, what you need. And I don't think I can - I'm not the man for the things you're asking for. Just look at what happened! And I don't get it what is it that you want exactly. I got the action you wanted, I think, but I don't get the why's of it. I'm not even sure I want to be able to get them. And it's never enough - what I do, I can never get it right. I absolutely don't understand you lately. And it feels like I'm failing, because I can't provide what my lover… my partner needs…" He stared down at the floor now.
Hmmm… What to ask, what to ask. So many good questions there. 'I'm not eve sure I want to be able to get them.' - a fear worth opening up, the big question still unanswered: 'With all that, why are you still there? Not why you should be there. Not the million reasons taught to you. What is holding you there? Why didn't you, for example leave for his own good, if you're so incompatible?' But such questions in front of Draco would do more damage than good.
"Harry, what do you mean by 'I'm not even sure I want to be able to get them'?"
Another glance at Draco, cautious.
"It's just,…" silence, "I… Draco, I'm sorry, but these things really… disturb me, ok? I don't think I want to understand why someone would find rape attractive. I know some people do, and… I had enough of that in the visions, and to think that you're like one of them… I'm not sure how to deal with that."
"It wasn't about the rape, Harry. Shit, even I get that, and I'm not the therapist here! It's about limits - I don't want to have any from you, but they need to be broken sometimes. Don't you see?"
"Obviously I don't see, Draco!"
"Well, look closer than!"
"I'm not fucking going there, Draco! Don't you see?"
"Oh, I see - you're afraid it'll rub off on you… If you look closer, and allow yourself to actually think it through, it might make sense, and then where will you be?! The Savior, who gets why rape is attractive! We can't have that, can we?! 'That's a no-no, Harry; here, be a good boy, pose for some pictures. Good savior.'"
Harry's lips curled in disgust.
Time for some management, take away the sting, keep the sentiment, file the resentment Draco has for 'The Savior'.
"Refraining from the name calling and tempers rising, Harry, are you afraid to take things in because they might be convincing?"
"Evil often is. Seductive and sweet tongued." Like Draco, isn't it?
Draco gasped, turned, and seethed.
How very young we are indeed. Still few shades of gray in your world, aren't there, Harry?
"But, to recognize what is simply un-normative, and what is 'evil' you do have to pay some attention to it first, and then decide, wouldn't you agree?"
Silence. We're getting somewhere, possibly.
"You did bring up one very important point, Harry. Right now you don't 'get' him. And besides the question of limits, and the strategy Draco has to break them, there is the question of differences. You've been together for two years now, but the experience was very different for each, and the roads you traveled to get here, you walked alone." I turn to the other man, the one we're doing this all for, "Draco, I know you haven't talked about the things each had to give up to be together. I think you should start now. Tell Harry, what changed for you in your life, what changed in you."
Unease. But this is neutral enough territory, some of it worked through already, so he can dare to walk there.
"I… gave up my family." Full stop.
"I gave up my loyalties. I changed my ideals, or they changed… I, gave up all but few of my friends, I gave up my habits - for you, and thus for your friends - I talked to you about the house-elves and the flat issue, Harry, and I submitted. I gave up my dislikes and likes of people. I gave up who I was - you have to have recognized that you've been dating a very different Draco Malfoy than you knew. And don't get me wrong, Harry, the rewards - you - were worth it, and I knew what I was doing, in the back of my mind. It's just, Harry, sometimes I don't know it you're still here, if I'm still here, if it's still worth it. You're worth it, and it's supposed to be a good thing to change for the better, but maybe it was too much, too soon, or maybe I miss some parts, and don't know why I had to give them all up…" Silence.
"Draco!"
But what can you say to that? Except 'thanks for the responsibility.'
"I didn't make you! You, you, could have stopped anytime. You know that! I didn't hold an axe over your head. I didn't make you decimate your life!"
"I know, Harry. But it was all or nothing kind of deal. I knew that early on. And I held on as long as I could - in school. But now, it's so small and empty in life, and there's only you left, I got rid of the rest, and you're my life Harry, but maybe that's not enough." Pause.
Harry tried to reply, "Dra…" but was cut off by the rest of it:
"And when I tried to make it enough, to bring more of you into me, to get us as close as I could to fight the emptiness, you think I'm like the Death Eaters. When I'm nothing like them now, I'm the furthest from them I can be. Do you see now?"
TBC.