temperence:

Alisa could not help but find herself frowning as she lay back on the Therapist couch. Every session was pretty much like this, since Nick got her to actually go. She was never happy to be there, and never happy to hear what her therapist "tried" to recommend to her. She put her arms under her head, and just listened to Doctor Kimes go on, and on...

"Miss LeBeau... I seriously think you should go to a more therapeutic environment. Perhaps an In-Patient program." The Doctor sat behind his desk, tapping a bright yellow pad with some expensive looking pen. His free hand adjusted his glasses as he continued to speak. "Though you have made great progress, you still are a bit emotionally stunted. You easily get frustrated and angered at some people... mainly this "Lyta" person you keep mentioning. You also seem to maintain a rather... well... unhealthy relationship with this "Nick" person. Though I applaud him for managing to get you to come to therapy twice a week. I fear you degrade yourself around him; he is a tool to lower yourself to how you view yourself. And that is not fair to either one of you."

"Ah take dat as more o' an opinion an' non a diagnosis." She continued to frown, her red on black eyes narrowing quite a bit.

"Miss LeBeau. Some of the things you are going through are from the trauma of the sexual abuse you suffered." Doctor Kimes sighed, leaning back in his plush leather chair, while pinching the bridge of his nose. "You repressed much of it, and once it came out... you have not been able to figure out how to handle it properly. You refuse to go to survivor meetings, you rarely speak about it anymore to me, and you bottle up your rage and anger in a bottle much too small to contain it. One day, that bottle will shatter, and I fear you will, as well."

"Now dat is jus' a hypothesis." She smirked a little, finally closing her eyes. "Ah've met you halfway. Ah come here, ah talk, an' den ah go. Ah take some o' what you say under advisement... de rest ah pretty much drown out."

"Stubborn as always." He groaned, looking back over at Alisa. "You have a high IQ, but you are allowing your emotions to dictate your logic at times. This is what I am trying to get into your thick skull. You have the emotional age of a twelve year old child! You have locked away those emotions for so long; you do not know how to handle them. And because of that, you act out in what I consider to be "odd ways". Alisa, I know I cannot force you to go, but there is this lovely facility in Canada that deals with what you are going through. From the life of a street child, the sexual abuse you suffered from, as well as your own mutant powers..."

"Wait, what does bein' a mutant 'ave to deal wit' all dis shit?" This caught her attention. Alisa raised an eyebrow, carefully looking at Doctor Kimes. This was something she had not done, even since she started to go to therapy here.

"Well, I do not think you have even dealt with the fact you are different from society, in more ways than one. For children who discover they are mutants, a majority of them to not seek help with the emotional damage such a discovery can cause them." Doctor Kimes opened up his desk, taking out a brochure. "This place is specifically for mutants, ones who were thrown away by society and lack any direction in their life. They offer emotional support, counseling, a nice scenic environment, as well as four star accommodations. It's a charity run organization, so you would not be charged for going. I think it would be a good place for you to go."

"Ah'll look it over. But no promises..." That frown was pretty much set in stone as she sat up from her couch. Doctor Kimes walked over, handing her the brochure.

"Look, I think this would be the best course of action, Miss Lebeau. I really do not wish to read in the newspaper that you beat up this "Lyta" woman because you are jealous she gets to live the kind of life you were denied. Or that you died from some kinky game with this "Nick" fellow." He folded his arms over his chest, watching as Alisa slowly got up off the couch and started to head for the door. "Just think this through, Miss LeBeau. You can offer this world so much, if you just got the help you needed."

"Like ah said Doc, ah'll t'ink about it. No promises." She rolled her eyes as she made her way out of the room. She really did not want to listen to anymore of what this guy was telling her. He kept pushing this place each and every session now for weeks! Before he could chime in with something else, Alisa cut him off. "Ah'll see you in t'ree days, ah guess."

"Oh... of course." The doctor just stood there, nodding his head as Alisa left the room, giving off a sigh of relief once she left. She was, probably by far, one of THE most difficult paitents he ever tried to treat. Now he just needed to see a therapist of his own!

*************************

It took Alisa sometime to get back to the Champions Base, she stopped by "Papa Gumbo's" and picked up something for everyone to eat. She closed the door with her hip, and made her way into the kitchen, shouting.

"Ah'm back! Ah got everyone some food if you wan' it! If non... well... it'll go ta waste an' Corey will be pissed off! An' we all wouldn' wan' dat!" She smirked, taking out the stupid brochure her therapist gave her. As she waited for the others, she started to leaf through it and mutter to herself. "Seriously ain' dat bad!"

a_blessing:

Harmony always opted to go to St. Vincent's for mass on Sunday mornings.  They were one of the rare Catholic churches that still did sunrise services once a month, services that had been Harmony's favorite since she was a little girl back in Kansas.  Nowadays they were more than just favored; now they were practical, given how nocturnal Sin generally was.  He'd been very honest from the beginning--he didn't do the "God thing."  Much to her surprise this hadn't put her off.  Harmony chose to accept it and not to press.  He never stopped her from worship and she appreciated that.  It was just an item of life they could not share but had found a middle ground.  This was, she thought, how relationships were supposed to work.  It didn't mean that she had to completely leave Sin out of the little things that made her sunrise mass so important to her.  Coffee and pastries were also part of the routine for her and sunrise services played to her advantage: this early in the morning there were now crowds, only the devoted slipping from the cathedral and onto the morning-lit streets.

Smiling to herself, she paid for breakfast before slowly walking up the street and back to Sin's.  Her mind was already on surprising him, thoughts far from anything more than that.  Distracted, she misses the way the shadows pull from the corners of buildings and that the birds have stopped singing.   She misses everything until she hears a rustle of wings and then a blood-curdling screech-like noise right behind her as a dark, winged creature descends from the sky and heads right for her sending the other people on the street scattering.  And the winged beast is not the only one, just the largest in what appears to be a small army of gargoyles come to life.

Harmony screams.

sandcastlegod:

Corey stepped off at the bus stop a short walk from the streetcar he'd take back to the Room. But he didn't go straight to the streetcar stop this time. One of the Jazz students at the creative arts center had been talking about the house band at Papa Gumbo's. The word 'virtuoso' had been used regarding the resident pianist, and the phrase 'timelessly classic but fluid style' as well.

As an artiste, Corey's interest was piqued. Fortunately it was one of the sort of places that usually only carded you if you tried to order a drink. So he just slipped in and sat in the late-afternoon crowd, which hardly counted as a crowd because the late afternoon was far too early.

ladydevil:

Elizaveta Romanov could claim to handle anything and everything that came her way. She did it with style too. She had dealt with everything that came her way in her own way. That included her public and private life.

She had never though had to deal with a pushy reporter who wanted to know more about the member of the American Romanovs that kept out of the public spotlight as much as she could. Getting a pair of sunglasses broken while trying to back out of questions in the early spring in New York wouldn't have been so bad but down south?

Much worse. She squints and tries to not hold her head after the hasty retreat to another block. She would call her mother for some schooling on how to back off in the future or ask if they could find a way to cut off nosy people. She liked not being too 'well-known'.

After getting a new pair of sun glasses the red head decides to run off for food. Papa Gumbo's comes to mind when she finds her car again and she is off to forget about people knowing who she is. She really doesn't want people looking too closely at who she is.

deadliestsin:

Adrian sat in his jazz club Papa Gumbo's, playing idly on the piano. The bar was moderately full, but he was more bored than anything. There was no challenge to life, no thrill to anything. He lived a life that most mortals would be happy to, yet he was less than content.

That probably had to do with the fact that he was a demon in mortal's clothing and had been doing it for far, far too long. He had been doing this for at least fifty years, though how many for sure, he wasn't exactly sure. Long enough for him to be getting tired of it all, that was for sure.

His shift was near an end, and for that, Adrian was glad. Just as he was finishing up his set, his replacement player was standing nearby. Adrian didn't like the man, but that didn't mean he was rude. For a demon, Adrian was quite respectful when he wanted to be.

"Ey Sin, ya'll almost done? How were the tips t'night?" the man asked as Adrian stood and stretched his spine. Green eyes turned to the man, and for a moment, Adrian considered his answers. The tips had been good, but Adrian also tried to minimize his interactions with his coworkers. It made his life harder when people thought they knew him too well.

"Tips were okay. You wanna stay in ragtime mostly.. They're not very entertained with anything before 1950." he said in a low tone, before gathering his bag and moved away. Adrian was hungry and at least after every shift he was afforded a meal. He slid onto a stool and dragged long fingers through dark hair before he sighed and let his shoulders slump.

Did demons have mid-life crises? Considering that he wasn't anywhere near the middle-point of his life, he didn't know what to think. But life sure was pretty dull, it wasn't nearly as bad as life in Hell, but it was really really boring. And he was really bored.