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[heyboss]

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[heyboss]

Sheehan pulls back, leaning against the arm of his chair. "I know. I hate that, too. I lost - someone close to me here. She told me she was leaving with only a day or so to prepare. I almost wish I hadn't gotten the notification," he explains. "It's not a good feeling and I - I am really sorry that you felt it, too."

[falkeditupagain]

Hanna doesn't feel like sitting. He's been sitting in his little hide out for a week and it feels good to stretch his legs.

"Is...is there anyway to make that stop?" Malcolm had said it was psychological, and he was rather aware of that, where it started. He wasn't the first professional to point that out to him so bluntly, it had just been a hell of a long time since the last.

"I get like this and I feel like people can see right through me." People being Malcolm, or Arthur who he swears if they weren't friends he'd think all they were looking for was an interesting puzzle to solve. "And I hate feeling like that."

[heyboss]

"It's really hard to be seen," Sheehan tells him. "It's vulnerable. But you don't need to make the feeling stop. The feeling is important, Hanna. But you can cope with it in another way other than running and hiding."

[falkeditupagain]

He isn't sure he gets that, frowning as he crosses his arms and puzzles through it in his head, "so I...shouldn't try and work on my random abandonment issues?"

He says as if they both don't know they aren't at all random.

[heyboss]

"I'm not talking about issues. I'm talking about feelings," he explains. "Issues mean there is a need to heal and cope. But feelings are valid."

[falkeditupagain]

"Feelings are garbage and I wish I didn't have them." Well- that's not true. He sighs, thinking of the piece of paper in his pocket. His feelings helped David, that was...unexpected, but sometimes they really so suck.

[heyboss]

"What a boring life that would be," he answers with a smile. "I know that you don't believe that, but it is hard to endure the negative feelings." He crosses his legs. "Where do you feel it? In your body? When you want to run?"

[falkeditupagain]

"Are you my armchair psychologist now?" He isn't sure how he feels about that, how literal that is, but fine. He'll bite.

His hand comes up to his collarbone where his scar starts, tracing it over his shirt to his heart. "Kind f all over, but it's like...centered right here. Just kind of buzzes outward until I feel it all over."

[heyboss]

"No, I'm using my skills at the job that I do to see if I can help a friend," he tells him firmly because this isn't the first or the second or the third or the seventeenth time that he's had this conversation.

"Is it painful?"

[falkeditupagain]

"That sounds very practiced," but he'll accept it.

He starts to pace, just so he can move and shrugs. "I don't know...I feel like I'm gonna explode, but that's not painful, that's like...pressure?"

[heyboss]

"You aren't the first one to accuse me of this, but I refuse to let my advice go to waste just because of what I was," he says with a hint of a smile. "And how do you relieve the pressure? Does running make it go away?"

[falkeditupagain]

He frowns, "Not really. I do that so I don't say shit I'll regret. I tend to, when I get like that."

[heyboss]

He goes quiet as he thinks. Just for a moment. "Saying things like you say to me?"

[falkeditupagain]

He can't even pretend that isn't accurate. "That's...kind of different. You've got like, cheat codes to wiggling into places I don't expect you too."

He hasn't felt like punching Sheehan before at least. "It's like a reflex. And...I'm sorry I do that."

[heyboss]

"I know you are," he assures him smoothly, instantly. "But it still is something you do and continue to do. So why?"

[falkeditupagain]

Hanna chews on his lip, stopping in his pacing to slowly look back at Sheehan. Why?

"Probably a bunch of reasons. Because you frustrate me, because I get uncomfortable and don't know how to handle it...because I feel like if I push enough, you'll realize I'm not worth it and leave like I know you should."

[heyboss]

"Do you think you're good enough to hide your true nature from me?" he asks and there's a little teasing in it because he doesn't like to drop heavy things on Hanna too much. He is giving him an out, just a little one.

[falkeditupagain]

He raises an eyebrow at him, "and what does 'true nature' mean? I'm not just secretly reveling in the fact that I can be an ass and laughing about it like a litte goblin..." He doesn't like to be at all, really.

But the truth of what happened, how he operates, who he is now as some rotten fucking shell of a boy, no one wanted to hear it, so it's easier to just push them away before they got close enough to tell him he's crazy. It makes no sense, he knows Sheehan had seen it, but that doesn't make his behavior any more rational.

[heyboss]

"And I can be an ass, too. But you are worth caring about, Hanna. You are worth caring about a lot. So - that's what I intend on doing. And if you need to snap at me a lot before you realize it, then so be it."

[falkeditupagain]

He's quiet a moment before taking in a deep breath. Fine.

"I lied to you before. The D doesn't stand for doctor."

[heyboss]

It takes Sheehan a moment to switch gears, but he lands back on the nickname.

"Yeah? What does it mean?"

[falkeditupagain]

"I suppose it's not so much a lie, more that the D can be interchangeable."

He shoved his hands in his pockets and pointedly stares at the wall, back facing Sheehan. Why is being honest so hard and generally embarrassing?

"Sometimes it stands for dick when you're being one, not as likely. But when you're being all...disappointed, or telling me that despite any kind of resistance you're still going to care? It's dad. C-cause it's hard to not hear it like you say it and not think about him and I have no idea how to deal with that, but maybe after I graduate I'll get you a picture, show you how weird it is to look at you and see the outline of him."

[heyboss]

Sheehan doesn't know what he was expecting, but it certainly wasn't that. He had thought about being a father figure for Faroe, of course, but that's different. He's going to be in her life forever, until he dies, and that's a commitment he walked into with thought and intention.

Hanna, though, is a different beast. He's a friend that Sheehan has cultivated from the ground up and somewhere along the way, it became this.

He pushes off of the chair again and reaches out for Hanna to wrap his arms around him in a tight embrace.

"I care about you, Hanna. I love you. And I'm honored that you'd think of me that way. But - I am never disappointed in you. Just in the decisions that you make."

[falkeditupagain]

It's unfortunately Sheehan's fault for being a fun, positive male role model that made the decision to give him any kind of attention at all.

He had been expecting the hug the moment he heard him get up from his chair, but he can't help but laugh, shaking his head. His hands coming up to hold the arms around him and despite that lingering feeling of discomfort, it's really nice to hear I love you again from a voice he trusts and cares about. Breaches be fucking damned, he didn't need one to find family.

"That's the most dad fucking thing to say too. Now you're just doing it on purpose..."

[heyboss]

"I wouldn't know," he teases lightly because, yes, that's' exactly what he was doing. "My dad was a piece of shit."

He holds him tightly, though. This time, it's Sheehan who needs the embrace.