Work Text:
"I don't know what attracts me to her"
Donnie flapped his hands, giddy.
"She's an objectively bad person." He said, because it was true.
The therapist seemed mildly surprised when he did not elaborate, but did not question him. They settled back into that detached concern that only therapists could truly emulate.
He was so, genuinely excited to talk about this with someone, someone who could not stop him from going back to Kendra.
"It's beginning to become a bit of an obsession, which I'm sure you're familiar with, nervous laugh. She's intelligent, almost as much as me, and she knows how to use that to her advantage. "
Donnie fiddled with the pen he was holding, turning it over with his fingers.
"-but I don't find myself caring too much, considering it's all apart of this little game we're playing."
He leaned back onto the couch, pausing for an appropriate amount of time to allow the yokai across from him to speak if they wanted too.
"What do you mean by that?"
He smiled, all teeth. Donatello simply loved answering questions with long-winded and complex explanations. The grin that stretched across his features felt tinged with wrongness, with the shame that he really shouldn't be happy about this. He pushed that thought away from the forefront of his mind. He deserved to be happy about something, didn't he?
"She's-She's hurt me before, and I don't doubt she'll do it again, but there's this-this exhilaration I feel just from talking about it. It's not just that she's might hurt me, it's that I don't know when it's going to happen, or what it will be like."
"How does that make you feel?"
Something sticky and unpleasant brought heat to his cheeks as he slightly curled in on himself.
He could feel his confidence, his giddiness, his excitement slowly seeping out and making way for deep-seated shame. Therapy tended to do that to him.
He knew his relationship with Kendra wasn't supposed to be as enjoyable as it was.
"I- it makes me feel. . . good. I like it when her attention is directed at me, even if she's angry."
"Do you think you deserve it when she is unkind?"
"No, no. . . she really isn't all that bad, and besides, it feels kind of-" he paused rocking back and forth a bit to sooth himself "-like, things are back in balance when she's- when she isn't-" Donnie trailed off. He couldn’t seem to find the words anymore.
He listened to the silence, the click of his ears when he swallowed. He tapped his fingers on his knee, so he could listen to that too.
Now that the high was slowly dying and Donnie was becoming acutely aware of all the things wrong with him, he did not think he could take the therapist's judgment. He knew they were just going to do their job, probably thinking about grocery lists and taxes, but he wanted them to look at him and see something worthwhile. It didn't matter that they were technically a stranger. Donnie wanted them to like him. Wanted them to think he was good.
Donnie spoke. He felt this implacable need to make the yokai understand, to take back the sentence deciding his guilt with their deep exhale and judgemental cross of one leg over the other.
"Kendra is nice to me, sometimes.” Donnie paused, searching their face, before continuing “And-and when she is, it's like, it feels so good. And I feel like . . . Like I'm good. Like I did something right.”
“And is her behavior a punishment when she treats you badly?”
“N-No she's just- it's just-”
Donnie buried his face in his hands, squeezing his eyes shut. His face felt hot, burning, like the uncomfortable sweaty heat of waking up under too many blankets. He felt small and ridiculed for it.
“It feels right.” He admitted, ashamed.
The yokai made a small humming noise, which Donnie could not hope to interpret.
“You did good work today, Donatello.”
He barely heard them, settling somewhere deep within his body and away from anything that could scare him.