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A scream ripped from gritted teeth, jumping octaves in his throat. He lunged at her,

precise jabs in his mind falling into wild slashing, bashing, clawing as he raked her, grunting as

every blow pounded back up his limbs. His cry bore words as it grew hoarse, ragged,

desperate.

“Gah, fuck, I hate you! Your smug stupid fucking faces, all the stupid fucking bullshit

taking up every goddamn minute I might have to think-”

“Be specific.” She interrupted, and her fingers curled inwards as the blows rained upon

her.

He snarled and heaved for breath, shoving back against her, “Specific? That’s the worst

part of it, everyone wants a fucking pamphlet! I have to do fucking everything for you already,

and you’re the ones who need to be told how it is! I-”

“Specific.” She insisted, and her palms moved inwards.

“I hate you!” He kicked at her, other foot slamming back, eyes flashing, “I hate the way

you look at me like I’m inferior, like I’m something tolerated, like I’m the one too helpless to

move my fucking finger without needing someone to prompt you! The way I bend over fucking

backwards to try and accommodate every fucking fault, every fucking stupid, idiotic thing out of

your goddamn mouth! I hate you remarking on every last thing you’d have preferred me to do,

that again if you could have lifted a goddamn finger you’d have fucking been done with in the

time it took you-”

“And that’s my fault? You’re the one bending. You’re the one breaking. You’re the one

performing.” She moved in again, surging up to meet him, closing fast enough to make him

flinch, hiss in sharp recoil. “Why are you letting it happen?”

He froze in place for a moment, a heaving exhale dissolving into a cold shudder. Sweat

spilled down his brow. His eyes welled. He snarled, lunging at her, grabbing hold and rending,

clawing, a growl roaring beneath as he cried out,

“Performing?! Fuck you, performing! I am always doing shit for you! I feed you, I talk

through every fucking problem, I do everything you demand from me so I can have the privilege

of being in your presence, you…you fucking bloodsucker, you entitled prick! What don’t I do?

I’m your company, I’m your therapist, I’m your cook, I’m your fucking maid-”

She didn’t flinch for an instant. “So what? You do it. For many people, if you’re to be

believed. You do it day after day, even as this little rage builds. Seems like you’re wasting time.”

She leaned in, eyes narrowed, “You hate it. Hate me. When have you ever told anyone

any of this? Why are you doing something you hate, for people who don’t care, who think so

little of you? Why do you bother yourself with problems that exhaust what little strength you

possess, that stretch beyond your limited abilities, that turn you into this?”

She closed her hand around him, walls encircling him, dwarfing him, swallowing him as he clung to her palm..

“Why are you doing this to yourself?”

“I-...!” His fingers clenched mid-wrend, and he clung to her, feet off the ground, limbs

lurching into a trembling. “I’m not doing this to myself! I-...”

He shuddered, shook upon a palm that stood fast like a boulder in his grip. He fell silent

save for the high-pitched squeak of an inhale. The tiniest shimmer of a tear fell from his face to

her palm. Then another fell, and another, and another. He pitifully thudded a fist against her, and

through the rising tears choked out,

“B-because…cause maybe it’s fucking me! Maybe I am inferior, maybe I am lucky to be

within ten fucking miles of anyone, to serve some purpose, to do something with myself! I-I’m

just always alone, even when I’m with people, a dozen, a-a hundred, I’m alone! A-and I do all

this…a-all this fucking shit because if I don’t then they’re not even there to begin with, a-and it’s

worse!”

He slipped from the purchase upon her palm, down to the smooth wood of the ground,

deep within the shadowed well of her grasp, sniffling weakly, wiping at his eyes, slumped over,

defeated. “I-I’m just tired! I-I thought someone was going to take care of me, too, i-if I did

enough! A-and I don’t feel like it’s happened, a-and I don’t know if it’s because I’m not good

enough or I’m not the right kind of person, s-so I keep going and going and going, a-and instead

of feeling like I’m doing something good, o-or that I’m good, I-I can’t stop feeling…so angry.

Bleak. Just…trapped…”

He trailed off. She finished scribbling another note down with her other hand, sliding the

notepad aside, watching his ears flicker and flinch as she leaned over the panther in the pit of

her fingers. She let him breathe for a few moments, before softly answering, “It’s not hard to feel

trapped by your own life, or to lash out at it.” Slowly, she withdrew the fingers from around him,

leaving him in light and open air upon her desk.

“It seems like you’re coming down…how do you feel?”

He stayed down, catching his breath, head hung low, eyes open and firmly staring at,

through the grain of the wood beneath him. When he looked up, his eyes were red, and a quiet,

chilled timidity had flowed in to replace the anger that had boiled over.

“I-I don’t know…I’ve never just…let loose…not like that. Not like how I feel when I’m

alone, and really not…physically, like that.” He looked at his hands, squeezing his legs a little

closer to his chest. “I’ve never done that, ever. It was…frightening.” He let the word hang, biting

his lip. “Are you…are you sure you’re okay? I didn’t hurt you?”

The vixen nodded, taking a quick jot upon her pad, “It might not be flattering, but you

can’t. Perks of being someone my size in this line of work; most of my patients could take

anything out on me, and it’d be like rain on a cliffside.”

She focused upon him, folding her hands in her lap, auburn hair spilling onto her

shoulders as her chair gently creaked. “It’s not something for everyone, me roleplaying as a sort

of combined adversary, but for some of my patients on your scale, I’ve found letting out

everything you can’t, or won’t, burden others with, for fear of hurting them, frightening them,

losing them, can help form a useful starting point to work upwards from. Believe it or not, I’ve

done this sort of therapy as a patient myself.”

The panther looked up, gawking for a moment, a belated, nervous laugh and a hand

running through his hair muffling his shock, “Y-you? Hah, th-they must have been…well, really

big!”

“Believe me, if you’ve been around long enough, there’s always somebody bigger out

there. I’m lucky they were willing to let me vent it all out. Not exactly something I’d want to do

with anyone less than building size.” She chuckled, reaching under him to rumble the desk with

the opening of a single, titanic drawer, “We still have some time, we could talk more, or I had an

exercise, if you wanted.”

He swallowed down the last of the lump in his throat, wriggling a little more upright, tail

curling, “U-uh, sure, exercise sounds good, I-I mean! What is it?”

She smiled a little, spreading index cards twice his height across the desk’s plane, “Well,

since we’ve got a decent root for these feelings you’re struggling with, I thought I’d ask you to

look through a few schemas with me…”