Wisdom. Yeah. People didn’t usually fix things in a day. It had taken him forever, when his powers broke. Years, for Kealey to get a handle on her empath power. And she still had struggles. Rome, and all that. Not built in one, etc etc.

He nodded and listened to what Tarin had to say. They just walked basic control here. To start. Tarin did not say “to start.” Shin did. Those were his plans.

>>> ”I don’t want Lee to delay medical treatmentbecause she’s looking for stairs so I don’t have to ride in an elevator.”

Right. Falling buildings. People get hurt. He did not want to hinder.

”Of course,” the Asian said.

Tarin tried to dodge his question about training. Shin dug in his heels.

”Most people would say therapy. Training is something else. You don’t have to talk about that detail right now, unless you want to. I am curious, though. And also. Have you tried therapy for your claustrophobia?”

Shin was pushing a bit, wanting to know what sort of training Tarin had experienced and Tarin just looked at the other man for a minute.

”Good, because I don’t.” Tarin said. All of that was not fodder for curiosity and he hadn’t even told Lee the bulk of what had happened. He didn’t snap when he said it though, if anything he sounded tired.

As for a therapist, ”Nope. It wouldn’t help.” he responded to that one. Even if that was something Tarin wanted to do, therapy only worked if you were willing to tell a therapist all of the things that were causing your problems. There was no way Tarin was going to do that, so there was no point.

He didn’t want to talk about this anymore and the temptation to just call it for the day was solidly present. They’d only made it to a minute and a half though and Tarin had very much been hoping for better.

He took another drink of water, draining the bottle.

”Thanks for that.” he said, ”Do you have time for a couple more rounds?”

He had felt like maybe Tarin would not wish to immediately share, and he had been right. Good on him to have given the man an out. He knew he had been kind of forcing the man’s hand, and how Tarin responded seemed pretty generous to Shin, all things considered. He did not shout or snap or belittle the Asian… he just sounded like he’d had a long day… he was mentally and physically exhausted.

Shin nodded at him, and he did not press the issue. He left it unsaid, but it was obvious. If Tarin ever did want to share, he would listen.

Tarin was not into therapy with a real therapist. Again, Shin did not press. If Tarin had reasons, he had reasons. One that Shin spotted off the top of the reasons list was ‘well I would need to explain my powers, dimwit! And then that would just complicate therapy terribly.’ Fair, fair.

Tarin was on defense now, the question had made him a bit uncomfortable. As unsolicited personal questions are wont to do. But it seemed like he overcame the urge to bolt, because he downed his water and asked for one more go.

”Sure thing, Tarin.” Shin said. ”I’ll go set it up. And sorry… erm,” He left before he could delve deeper into the why and how sorry he actually was. Did not want to accidentally screw up the ‘I’m so cool I won’t press you further on personal details when you say not to’ thing he was aiming for.

A minute later, they started up the training once more.

If Tarin was honest with himself, he knew that he was treating Shin a little unfairly. The other man hardly knew him and had openly and helpfully agreed to something very strange just to be helpful.

It wasn’t that Tarin didn’t think Shin could handle the information, or that it really mattered that they didn’t know each other very well. The fact of the matter was that Tarin didn’t know how to just explain it all to someone, not deliberately. The fact that he’d shared as much with Lee was a result of spontaneous chance and circumstance as anything. This wasn’t the time or place.

Eventually they’d stood there long enough in semi-awkward silence that Shin just agreed to keep going and made his way back up to the control room…but not before apologizing.

Well shit. Now he felt even worse.

”It’s fine….” Tarin said as Shin walked away.

Two minutes was rough, when the breathing tricks had stopped working and he’d stopped being able to convince himself that everything was normal despite the fact that his logical brain knew it was, the panic state had set in and he’d just sat there in the dark for however much time had been left on the clock, he’d just kind of hyperventilated and embarrassed himself until the time finally ran out and he was left a shuddering mess in the middle of the floor.

He’d really wanted to get to two and a half minutes today. For some reason it had been the milestone Tarin had set and anything else felt like abject failure, but his hands hurt from clenching and the marks in his hands had broken the skin. Damn it.

”I think I’m done….” he said, hoping the mic in the room was able to pick up the sound.

Oh good, it was fine. Tarin said it was fine. That’s what Shin thought, as he walked away. Then, he put Tarin in a box.

He left Tarin in that box for two whole minutes. The man looked rough by the time that was over, on the floor, shaking. It was lucky Lee had not been present. Shin did not need a second asshole. If she had been there, it would have been her gift to him.

Shin came down and helped Tarin to his feet with an offered arm.

”Do you need anything? Another bottle water, some decaf tea? We have a healer who could help with your hands… though he might get perturbed it isn’t anything more severe.”

And Doc Prof would get the memory attached, the one about what caused the injury. Shin had not shared that with Tarin, and suddenly added ”You know what? Never mind. Just put on some disinfectant and clean them, bandaid up and you should be good. I’m sorry we couldn’t get you to three minutes or something. Maybe next time, we can go longer. Or try other scenes.”

Shin offered Tarin an arm up and Tarin only hesitated for a moment before he reached out and accepted the help, climbing to his feet a bit unsteadily.

Shin offered more help, up to and including a visit to the Doctor. Tarin shook his head to all of it, he couldn’t justify wasting the time and energy of the Doctor for something as superficial as he was dealing with. What if there was an emergency later?

Then Shin was apologizing and Tarin shook his head and chuckled a bit in spite of himself. ”No apology necessary. If it was that easy to fix, I wouldn’t need to be here.”

Shin suggested other scenarios or longer time frames and Tarin nodded, ”It would be good to know how long I have before things get scary…” Apparently two minutes was not enough to trigger a merge.

Tarin just stood for a few moments then, gathering his thoughts, ”I really appreciate this…” he said, ”Even if it doesn’t seem like it.”

It seemed like they both agreed, the doctor probably had more important things to do than heal a minor self-inflicted hand wound. They also both had better things to do than to get yelled at by an old man.

Tarin took his apology, and said there wasn’t need for one. Also, yeah, he’d been thinking that earlier. Things don’t instantly get better. Problems don’t always get solved in a single day. He nodded.

Tarin shared a thought. Good to know a time frame on a worst case scenario. ”Yeah. It is good to know stuff like that.” Shin said. What he had meant to say was ‘knowledge is power.’ But that had felt far too cliche, too ‘Saturday morning cartoon’. They would all cheer about how knowing was half the battle, or something. And then they’d bump fists or jump in the air and freeze frame. But Tarin’s issue was far too serious for cliche’d statements and Saturday morning cartoons. It would be good to know the absolute worst reactions one could have.

They just stood for a tiny bit, as they both processed and calculated. Then Tarin said:

>>> ”I really appreciate this… Even if it doesn’t seem like it.”

”I am happy to help. We’ll have to try a few more times, a different day.” He said.


A few moments later, Shin added: ”I want you to try and spend some time thinking on triggers. Is it the closeness of the space? The idea of the closeness? Just think on it, maybe write down what goes through your mind and try to separate yourself from it so you can analyze… I don’t know… I just know journaling can help people process things better than just having bad dreams.

It might give them a clue as to what they should target, what to work on. And knowledge is indeed power. It would give them a head start.