Participants:
| Scene Title | How Does That Make You Feel? |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Felix comes to Danika for a formal psychiatric evaluation |
| Date | July 25, 2009 |
The office is much like one would expect, it is nestled into a high rise building. The lobby has one receptionist behind the desk, looking at each person that comes in. It is almost like she's trying to guess their depravity. The walls are painted a warm muted brown while vanilla wafts through the area to stimulate comfort. After checking in, Felix is directed to sit upon the most comfortable couch that money and budget can buy. It really is like coming home to a mother's living room.
"Mr. Ivanov? You can go back now."
The office of Danika O'Shea is a stark difference from the one outside. Her office is set with white walls, clean lines and black furniture. Although if one sits upon it, it is no less comfortable. Her desk is white with a black top upon it. She stands as the door opens. "Mister Ivanov.." The sultry soprano voice purrs out in a lulling manner. ".. I am Doctor O'Shea, do you know why we are meeting this evening?" Her aquamarine eyes seem to shift to the clock to tally the six o'clock hour. The doctor in her clicking her brain over to it's business time.
It smells like cookies in here. Which is….kind of weird, but not bad. Fel's in a light gray suit, over a white oxford open at the throat - if he was wearing a tie earlier, it's gone now. The open suit jacket also occasionally offers a glimpse of the shoulder holster worn underneath. He's thin, worn, rimless glasses perched on his nose as he pushes them up with a finger. "Well, to be blunt, I've been through enough this year the Bureau wants to make sure I'm not going to crack and shatter and shoot up a McDonald's or something," he says, tone wryly cynical. His voice is almost accentless, but there's a faint hint of Brooklyn there.
Danika nods her head without a smile, though her lips twitch at the corners. "I hope you understand when I ask this of you. I need for you to leave all weapons at the front desk with Gloria. She'll make sure no harm comes to them." Her voice is clinical, but it is not lacking in warmth. She looks towards his holster and then back at him. "One never knows what can be triggered in this setting and I would like both you and myself to feel comfortable and protected. Do you need some coffee, tea or water before we start?"
He's taken aback by the request, but nods. This will be odder than he expected, clearly. "If you'll excuse me a moment, then," It's like a bar in the Wild West - check your weapons at the door. Gloria is presented, butt first, of course, with a shiny newish .45. Not, however, the standard weapon Agents carry. And then Fel presents himself back to Danika, tugging aside the lapel of his jacket to demonstrate that he's no longer packing heat. "Water," he says, belatedly.
"Thank you, Mister Ivanov, it is precaution and nothing more, you understand. I do not desire to get shot up if you are suffering from post traumatic." Danika steps outside and talks to Gloria about securing the weapon. She then comes back in with a bottle of water and closes the door behind her. There is a click. The room is set up with two chairs before her desk, a couch off to the side with another chair beside it. "If you would care to get comfortable we can start." Her aquamarine eyes study him thoughtfully before she gives him a smile.
His own eyes are a faded blue, guileless and a little puzzled. "Sure," he says, taking one of the chairs. "'Though I swear I don't have PTSD," Though honestly, he should, considering his past year.
Danika moves to her desk and takes the chair next to his. His file lies on her desk and she moves it a bit out of his reach. "Mister Ivanov, might I call you Felix? Tell me about this past year." She watches the puzzled expression and then crosses her long legs, elegantly.
"Technically it's Agent Ivanov, but I'm hardly going to insist on that here. Felix is fine," Fel says, popping open the bottle ofwater, taking a mouthful. "Uh. In short…..Four years ago, I left the NYPD to join the FBI. I was stationed first in San Francisco, then LA, and then Seattle. And then back here - I got back to New York a year ago. And honestly, it's been hell on wheels. I'm attached to SCOUT, since the Bureau really isn't sure what to do with an openly Evolved Agent. They don't dare shuffle me off - I've got a good record, and the ACLU would be all over them. So honestly, I've been doing more cop stuff. SCOUT's been dealing with mass murderers and terrorists, and it hasn't let up since I've arrived. I've been shot a number of times, and apparently killed once. I got better." He is entirely serious.
Danika jots down a few notes to this before she glances up at him. "Why is it that you moved around so much in the past four years? Was it hard on you and your family?" Her eyes lift to his as she takes in his mannerisms, listening to everything he says. She seems to be acutely aware of how he's sitting and the way his body moves.
He's not tense, but he is intensely restless - not so much fidgeting as unable to just be still. "Because the Bureau sends you were you're needed. That's part of the deal you get when you sign on. I don't have a family, other than my parents, and they live in Florida," Fel says simply. "I got a little tired of effectively living out of a suitcase, yeah."
Danika nods her head again to him. "Tell me about your friends and your significant other, do you spend a lot of time with them when you are not working?" The lights shimmer off the fire of her hair as she continues to watch the man across from her. There is a brightness to her eyes as if he has suddenly gotten her interest.
He actually blushes slowly, at that. "I don't have a lot of friends here," he says, hesitating. "I guess….my best friend is a detective named Elisabeth. And there's another named Judah. My social circle mostly comes from work, as you see," he says, lips pulling to the side in a wry smile. "Significant other. Uh. That's kindof weird. When I was a cop, my partner was this Bostonian named Leland. We've been good friends for years. I kept having to move after I got back here, just various circumstances, and I finally moved in with him. He had a spare bedroom, I help out with the rent." He fidgets with his glasses, holding them in a hand, and doesn't look her in the eye. "Now we're lovers," he finishes, bluntly.
Danika schools her features not to react to his words as she offers. "I see, so your social circle seems to revolve around your career, would you agree with that assessment?" At the end comment she makes a note. The sound of her pen moving across the paper before she offers to him. "How is your relationship with Leland?"
"Good, but weird," Fel says, with a shrug, polishing his glasses with a bit of cloth taken from his pants pocket. "Honestly, I'm in love with him, have been for months. He's still so far in the closet, though, so it's something we keep to ourselves. He's afraid that it'd hurt him careerwise, if his superiors thought he was sleeping with a man. But I'm just happy to have him."
Danika nods her head to that. "So you are in a relationship with a man that you must keep quiet about. Tell me something Felix, how does that really make you feel? I mean beyond the answers you are supposed to give and more to the ones deep inside of you. Are you satisfied in a relationship like this one?"
"Well, I'm annoyed I can't touch him in public, but honestly, other than that, it's good," Fel just peers at her for a moment. "He's a good guy."
Danika nods her head. "Why do you feel the urge to tell me that he's a good guy? Is there a part of you that is uncertain to this?" Danika's features give nothing of her internal thoughts away as she jots down a few more notes. She spends most of her time concentrating on him.
Felix just laughs. "No. Happily. That's one of the few things in the world I am certain about," He waves it away. "Is it really relevant to proving I'm sane enough to carry a gun and a badge?"
Danika smiles softly. "Well there are many indicators to if a person is prepared to take up the mantle of their work again. Let's pause on the questioning for now." She pulls out ten cards and they are face down. "I would like to do the Rorschach test with you. It is a simple test and there are no wrong answers. I am going to hold up a card and I would like to know what you see when you look at it. Is it alright with you that we begin?"
He's read enough Alan Moore that it calls up one of those lopsided grins again, but Felix nods obediently. "'Sure," Another lazy shrug, and he's put his glasses back on.
Danika nods her head to this and lifts up the first card, turning it around for his evaluation. "It should only take but a moment, but I would like to know what you see when they are flipped over. This is the first one."
"A bell and two angels," Felix says, without hesitating. Christmas on the brain, perhaps?
Danika doesn't respond as she holds up the second card, but she does score the result.
There's an odd twitch to his expression, as he notes the red spatters. "Bears," he says, after a choke moment of hesitation. "A pair of bears."
Danika notes the twitch and looks at him just a bit more intensely before she moves onwards to the third card. She's writing his responses on the paper before her.
"Two birds, two fish, a butterfly," Feliz says, withouta hint of irony.
Danika flips up the fourth card.
It's honestly a litany of near nonsense Fel issues in response, brow furrowed. He's clearly humoring her, or perhaps psychology in general. "Canada geese and a dragon's head," he offers for the fourth. "A moth." ANother sip of water, "Smoke from a fire," He blinks lazily. "Two panthers, a flag, and fire." The ninth one has him pausing. "Nothing at all, honestly. It doesn't conjure up any images." The tenth one: "A whole menagerie. Fish, bugs, shoes….and crabs," he looks a little wry at that last.
Danika glances at the answers and starts to draw a chart upon the paper before her. She looks up at him once and then looks back down to write some more information out. "Tell me at work would you say that you are very detail orientated? You like to think of a paradigm shift and try to think of ways to automate simple tasks?"
"If that's a polite way of asking me if I am a nitpicky bastard, yes, I have to agree," Fel says, offering a grin.
Danika nods her head to that and then looks at the rest of her 'evaluation' from just looking at his responses. "You gave very safe answers to the pictures given to you, especially in your line of work." She then looks up at him and smiles. "In relationships, when a person hurts you, do you find it easier to just cut them from your life or do you have the urge to hurt them back?"
Felix looks to the pictures again, as if they might reveal something. "The former," he says, easily. "I don't go in for revenge."
Danika nods her head to that. She shuffles the blots away and then leans forwards a bit. "Tell me why you think your commanding officers and agents think you are not able to work. There must be some reason they are requesting your psychiatric evaluation."
"Oh, they let me work. They just want to make sure I haven't gone barking after all the violence," His tone is wry. "I think I'm fine, as much as I can be. I do take my medication - I used to be manic depressive, but honestly, I think a healer I encountered mostly deal with that."
Danika nods her head to that. "I'm going to recommend that you see me once a week while we get a more in-depth detailing to make sure that they see that as well." Danika smiles softly again, never really reaching her eyes. "Your parents, you mentioned them. What do they do and are you an only child?"
And that gets what's an open smirk. "I am an only child. My mother is ex-KGB - now she writes and gives voice lessons. My father was a professor of music, and he continues to teach a bit at the University of Florida. Once a week, huh? For how long?"
"Until I feel it is no longer needed, Agent. We do want to make sure that you are not a menace to your work." Danika offers with perhaps a bit of humor laced in. "Tell me what you do specifically in your line of work."
He ponders this a moment. "I….honestly, I investigate what I'm given, and try to be the interface between the Bureau and the Department when it comes to SCOUT. There's an old and bitter rivalry, and it can lead to people being selfish with information. That's eased a lot, though."
Danika nods her head. "Pretend I am a layman in such things. Tell me what the Bureau, the Department and SCOUT is. How do you define them and your role that you must maintain in them?" She watches for a moment, her pen poised above the paper, but not yet writing.
Oh, a mouthful of jargon. Bad form. Felix looks apologetic. "I'm sorry. I tend to forget how opaque all that babble sounds. The Deparment is the New York Police Department. The Bureau is the FBI. SCOUT is a joint task force - a group from the FBI, the NYPD, and a handful of other agencies, up to and including some stray National Security guys, tasked with dealing with Evolved crime in all its permutations in New York City. Mostly the serious and violent stuff- there are active terrorist groups on both the ani and pro-evolved sides of the issue. And they don't scruple to hurt innocents, so we track them down. Counter-terrorism. We deal with serial killers - both by the Evolved, and of them. You'd be amazed at how many people want to persecute the Evolved. I honestly function like an ordinary detective most of the time - building cases and trying to catch criminals."
Danika nods her head. "You stated when you walked in that the Bureau was not sure how to deal with an openly evolved agent. Are you talking about yourself and do you feel that it hinders or helps you in your work with SCOUT?" Danika looks the man over from top to bottom.
Felix rubs the back of his neck, nervously. "I think it helps me in SCOUT, in a sense. I'm sure it doesn't do me any good in my career in the rest of the FBI. It's a deeply conservative organization, and me suddenly proving to be a mutant freak…that doesn't help."
Danika looks up with a bit of interest. "Is that how you see yourself, Felix? Do you see yourself as a mutant freak?" Her aquamarine eyes land on his and hold there as if she's searching for something.
Felix meets her gaze guilelessly. "Well, honestly, yes. What I have is a mutation. Evolved is a misleading term. The Evolved aren't a new species of human. We're plain old Homo Sapiens Sapiens with an odd genetic quirk. And it is sort of freakish, really."
Danika lowers her brows to that as if she doesn't understand. "A freakish genetic quirk? You think this makes you inferior to those around you then? What I mean is those that are not genetically quirked."
Felix shakes his head. "No, not inferior. Though nor do I think it makes me superior. Just different. It happens to be more useful than other mutations - I don't have something like Tay-Sachs or sickle cell anemia. But startlingly different, yes."
"So does that mean that you think those with sickle cell are freaks as well because of their genetic creation?" Danika uncrosses her legs and crosses them the other way. "What about your significant other? Would he be a freak if he had a mutation of his genetic structure?"
"Honestly, if he had this one, yes," Fel says, though he's clearly uncomfortable. "Sickle cell, no, that's just an unfortunate thing to have."
Danika nods her head. "So would that depreciate how you feel about him and what is this mutation that you have that is so bad? Do you become a green monster when you become angry?"
HE stops, staring, and then breaks into helpless laughter. "God no. It's not bad. It's just weird." He looks around for something metallic, puts out a hand….and a little knot of paper clips leaves her desk and soars to his palm, to land there gently. "No, it wouldn't. He doesn't like that I'm Evolved, but he doesnt' give me grief about it."
Danika watches the metal lift up and come to his hand. She doesn't look horrified or impressed, she just looks at it clinically. Her eyes then lift to his. "You manipulate metal then?" She studies the paper clips in his hand again as if looking for strings on it. "How do you think this has helped you in your career thus far?"
"Up until recently, I didn't. Manipulate metal, I mean," he clarifies, looking at her impishly, and sending the flock of paperclips back to their origins. "My actual power is hyper-reflexes. I ran into an Evolved whose talent is switching around the abilities of other Evolved. The speedster ability saved my life many a time."
Danika looks confused. "I'm sorry, so your ability was changed by whom? I heard there was a serial killer or something, is that who you mean?" Her eyes watch his as she takes a few notes, as if forgetting previously.
"No. This guy was not. He was a troublemaker, but not a killer. His name was Case. He switches powers, and that is precisely what he did to me," Fel explains, patiently.
Danika nods her head. "Sorry, even psychologists get a little distracted by interesting things that come up. I don't really see you at this point as a threat. However, as I said, I would like to continue seeing you and monitoring your progress before I sign off officially." She stands and offers her hand.
Not the instant answer he wanted, but Fel accepts it with decent grace. He rises also, takes her hand and shakes it firmly. "Sure," he says, trying to keep his reluctance from his voice.
Danika curls her fingers around his in a firm handshake. It lasts just a little too long as she looks at him, almost like one would something under a microscope. She then leans in and whispers, "Hablador." The sultry soprano voice is distinctly hers as she straightens back up. "I am sure that we will have everything cleared up in time, Felix."
He doesn't quite blink - there's an odd flutter of his eyelids, as it sinks in. "Yeah, I hope so. I like my job," he says, simply. And then he turns on his heel for the door.