He takes in every small movement, or lack of, and runs it through his own filter of what he knows about Hanna. Of what each of those little quirks mean.
He doesn't answer him or ask another question. He simply watches him, waiting for him to add more information if he wants, or to change the subject.
The longer the silence stretches, the more Hanna feels the need to fidget, that knee bouncing again. He swallows down the sick feeling rising up in his throat as he looks back at the beauty of the rising sun, the golden dawn light.
It's easier to talk when he knows Sheehan can't look him in the eye. People like that, he feels like the more he says, the more they can work through it with less context, but there is a soft mantra repeating in the back of his mind. He isn't a puzzle, and Sheehan isn't just going to leave when he's done slotting the pieces into place.
"I never blamed her for what happened. I barely felt it, you know? I mean, I did when I managed to get her out, but...not while it was happening." He let's the cup in his hand rest on the bench seat next to him.
"Her name was Dolores, but...heh. People just called her Dolly. Cute, right?"
He barely flinches, but there's a hitch to his throat as he speaks. Dolores - a name he heard over and over and over for years. The name of a dead woman.
He stares right back at him and then glances over the water. "The wife of one of my patients," he says. "Her name was Dolores. He killed her. It just - it was a strange coincidence, that's all."
I murdered my wife, Dolores, in the spring of 'fifty-two... Sheehan hears in his head, clear as a goddamn bell. Like Andrew was speaking right into his ear.
He gives Hanna a soft smile. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt your story."
Hanna shrugs, "Well, It was a pretty popular name for a while there. A bit old fashioned now." But he isn't sure he wants to say more about it.
"I was- well. I was basically done." Though there is something there, this idea that he might actually understand when he tells him how he can't even blame her for it at all.
"You can save that question for next time." Next time being whenever he's sorted through it, all those feelings revolving around the mess, the want to just leave it behind because it couldn't be fixed so why bother touching it at all.
"Don't really feel anything special," He'd been feeling kind of uncomfortable since he'd gotten onto the boat.
"I guess just weird, mostly. I knew what happened, cause I did it to myself but it wasn't like I could see it happening. I was stuck in my own head. Wasnt like there were any other witnesses." Well, aside from the other ghost in the room, but he's not offering that up.
"What about now?" he wonders. "Knowing that I know?"
He's not trying to push or prod Hanna into telling him something he's not comfortable with, but he does want to get a sense of his mood at the moment. It's important.
He does pull up the oars, though, needing to give his arms a break.
Pulling his lower lip between his teeth he thinks a moment, quiet as he attempts to figure out what the feeling that seems to linger is.
It takes him a minute, but he can put his finger on it. It's fear, mixed with anxiety, the idea that anything that happens now is driven by pity, or the idea that he's fragile. He wants to believe it's irrational, that Sheehan wouldn't treat him that way, but it's hard to push down.
"Kinda want to forget about it, honestly. So I don't worry about it, I guess." Is what he settles on instead.
"Why do you want to forget?" he murmurs. "That's the coping skill you seem to use most often. Turning away, forgetting, letting yourself believe it doesn't matter. Tell me how you feel right now. Physically," he says, leaning forward.
"I told you, I don't like bummers." Which is an easy enough answer to continue avoiding admitting that he cares what Sheehan thinks of him but the less he knows the more likely he is to stick around. It's always worked that way, and he sees no reason for it to change now. The forward approach is a good one though, much like John's shot straight to the heart in the aftermath of the underworld that broke him down enough to cry about it. His armor is only so thick and usually no one bothered to prod and poke at it long enough to get through it.
"I feel like moving. But I can't really when I'm holding onto magic water, stuck in a boat." Moving, diverting some of that anxious energy to a bouncing knee or even to gesture with his hands but he can't do either right now. He can explain the cold and the sweating away with just living, but the anxiety that has settled in his stomach is starting to make it ache. It'll go away soon enough if he can just ignore it.
"I know you don't. No one likes bummers," he assures him. "But listen to me, Hanna. You are not going to get hurt from this feeling. These feelings are uncomfortable, but they aren't going to do you any physical harm. So if you sit with them, they will fade and you won't die."
"Whats the difference, sitting with it and being uncomfortable for a while and just...letting it go until it becomes a problem again?" He doesn't think there is one, because he doubts it will ever be something that doesn't make him want to get up and run a mile.
"It's just there. Can't change it. But if I ignore it ever happened unless I literally can't? Then it's better that way. This is different than fucking up. It's a fucked up thing that happened. I spent enough time wallowing in it..." or rather, frantically telling people his ghost parents tried to kill him. All that did was make people think he was crazy and put distance and a barbed wire fence between him and their support and friendship.
"It's not a good look, and Im not about to repeat that mistake again."
"It isn't about fixing the problem, Hanna. It's about coping with your feelings so that you can make better decisions when the time comes to fix it," he explains. "If you're in this heightened sense of anxiety, then you aren't going to be thinking straight. You're going to be impulsive."
"I'm not anxious." He says trying not to fidget anxiously.
And he doesn't think there is anything wrong with being impulsive. It's saved his life so many times, though perhaps that's just luck, but he isn't counting on it. He'd never been good with odds.
Hanna sighs, glancing off to the side of the boat so he doesn't have to look at Sheehan and his stupid, accurate accusations.
"I just- I know what happens when I'm honest about shit, and I'd rather not. The only person who needs to know how I'm feeling is me, and I'll deal with it." Poorly, while pretending it isn't happening and he's fine, but still. He'll deal with it any no one else has to.
"Is that a bad strategy? I don't think so. Works pretty fucking great if you ask me."
Hanna doesn't have to think about it that hard. He'd been by himself for a very long time, no one really stuck around aside from Lamont and Worth, and both were there because of their working relationship. Not really the kind of people you spilled your heart out to as much as he liked them.
"I think so? What else am I going to do?" Between home and the Barge his life was quite different, but even if he had people to talk to about shit that made him uncomfortable and feeling a little too vulnerable he didn't see much value in it. Sure Sheehan had helped him figure out some way forward with Conrad, and he'd tried to apply that, but that was special, specific.
"I get we're all supposed to be figuring shit out, but I don't need to drag someone down with me or risk a connection just because I feel like shit sometimes."
This isn't the first time someone has used this defense on him and he shakes his head with an indulgent smile. "Alright," he tells him. "So, by that logic, do you think that you're dragging me down? Or that you haven't formed a connection?"
Sheehan has a hunch that this is going to a place of fear, but he continues pressing now, as Hanna hasn't shown him that he's had enough just yet. Sheehan isn't going to push him too far, but he doesn't want to let this sit.
"Stop what?" he wonders, aloud, wanting them to go over it again. If they could go over it every day so he could reassure him of the facts, then he will.
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He doesn't answer him or ask another question. He simply watches him, waiting for him to add more information if he wants, or to change the subject.
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It's easier to talk when he knows Sheehan can't look him in the eye. People like that, he feels like the more he says, the more they can work through it with less context, but there is a soft mantra repeating in the back of his mind. He isn't a puzzle, and Sheehan isn't just going to leave when he's done slotting the pieces into place.
"I never blamed her for what happened. I barely felt it, you know? I mean, I did when I managed to get her out, but...not while it was happening." He let's the cup in his hand rest on the bench seat next to him.
"Her name was Dolores, but...heh. People just called her Dolly. Cute, right?"
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"Yeah. Real cute," he manages to say.
"Why you?"
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"Who was she to you?" It's the question he won't answer turned right back.
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I murdered my wife, Dolores, in the spring of 'fifty-two... Sheehan hears in his head, clear as a goddamn bell. Like Andrew was speaking right into his ear.
He gives Hanna a soft smile. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt your story."
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"I was- well. I was basically done." Though there is something there, this idea that he might actually understand when he tells him how he can't even blame her for it at all.
"You can save that question for next time." Next time being whenever he's sorted through it, all those feelings revolving around the mess, the want to just leave it behind because it couldn't be fixed so why bother touching it at all.
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He's not just asking as a psychiatrist who recognizes that someone has had to relive some trauma. He's asking because he cares about his friend.
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"I guess just weird, mostly. I knew what happened, cause I did it to myself but it wasn't like I could see it happening. I was stuck in my own head. Wasnt like there were any other witnesses." Well, aside from the other ghost in the room, but he's not offering that up.
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He's not trying to push or prod Hanna into telling him something he's not comfortable with, but he does want to get a sense of his mood at the moment. It's important.
He does pull up the oars, though, needing to give his arms a break.
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It takes him a minute, but he can put his finger on it. It's fear, mixed with anxiety, the idea that anything that happens now is driven by pity, or the idea that he's fragile. He wants to believe it's irrational, that Sheehan wouldn't treat him that way, but it's hard to push down.
"Kinda want to forget about it, honestly. So I don't worry about it, I guess." Is what he settles on instead.
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"I feel like moving. But I can't really when I'm holding onto magic water, stuck in a boat." Moving, diverting some of that anxious energy to a bouncing knee or even to gesture with his hands but he can't do either right now. He can explain the cold and the sweating away with just living, but the anxiety that has settled in his stomach is starting to make it ache. It'll go away soon enough if he can just ignore it.
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He says it earnestly, though. Not a hint of jest.
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"It's just there. Can't change it. But if I ignore it ever happened unless I literally can't? Then it's better that way. This is different than fucking up. It's a fucked up thing that happened. I spent enough time wallowing in it..." or rather, frantically telling people his ghost parents tried to kill him. All that did was make people think he was crazy and put distance and a barbed wire fence between him and their support and friendship.
"It's not a good look, and Im not about to repeat that mistake again."
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And he doesn't think there is anything wrong with being impulsive. It's saved his life so many times, though perhaps that's just luck, but he isn't counting on it. He'd never been good with odds.
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"I just- I know what happens when I'm honest about shit, and I'd rather not. The only person who needs to know how I'm feeling is me, and I'll deal with it." Poorly, while pretending it isn't happening and he's fine, but still. He'll deal with it any no one else has to.
"Is that a bad strategy? I don't think so. Works pretty fucking great if you ask me."
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He isn't going to outright accuse him of lying to himself, but he does need to point out those truths to him.
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"I think so? What else am I going to do?" Between home and the Barge his life was quite different, but even if he had people to talk to about shit that made him uncomfortable and feeling a little too vulnerable he didn't see much value in it. Sure Sheehan had helped him figure out some way forward with Conrad, and he'd tried to apply that, but that was special, specific.
"I get we're all supposed to be figuring shit out, but I don't need to drag someone down with me or risk a connection just because I feel like shit sometimes."
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He sucks in a breath and looks across at Sheehan, pressing his lips together before continuing.
"I have, that's the problem." And he doesn't want to risk losing it.
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"What's the problem?"
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But saying it aloud again feels stupid, more irrational.
"It's stupid and doesn't really matter. We could just stop right here and that'd be just fine with me."
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