Spilling Guts

Part 4 - Past Flames

"I screwed up. Again."

Will hadn't met many shrinks before. He didn't know what they considered progress in someone's mental health. But he was sure digging his fingernails through the plastic on the couch as he slowly talked himself into another panic attack wasn't progress. He stared at the carpet between his feet as his words came out faster and faster. Breath running short.

"I don't know what to do. Do I tell Rachel? Do I tell Louis? You tell one's you might have exposed first, right? And if I exposed Louis and he becomes positive because of me then that's just another dumb thing I did wrong. It's bad enough between us."

Will's fingers dug deeper into the plastic, stretching it away from the plush virgin leather.

"And it makes sense that something like this would happen to me. Like saying "at least it's not Klingons", and then bam! Bird of prey. Except it's not Klingons, it's a virus that could get me kicked out of the Watch or sent to the labs—"

"If."

Will's mouth stuttered shut. He looked up at Balcuwitz's calm face. "What?"

"If. You don't know one way or another right now if you are HIV positive, so you can't speculate if Agent Patriarch is either." Balcuwitz loosened the knot of his crooked tie. "Also, if you were positive, you would not be the first person to continue working in the Watch. I've met them, and they are fine agents."

The reassurance made Will's body relax just enough for him to uncurl his hands. They came up with handfuls of torn plastic wrap. He brushed them into a tiny pile.

"Sorry."

"It has to come off eventually." Balcuwitz reached back for a trash bin, shiny and new with a bamboo pattern embossed in the metal, and held it out to receive the plastic scraps. Then he held out the candy dish. "Bit of sugar?"

"... sure." Will plucked out a cinnamon disc, sucking on the slowly dissolving candy like he would his mints. He had had a very small breakfast that morning, barely buttered toast, trying to get out of the door so he wouldn't be late again. And the tea in the interim hadn't helped his low lying hunger.

Balcuwitz took a small length of red liquorices, nibbling on the end. "You don't strike me as a person that hears something worrisome and then immediately panics. Why are you here instead of asking Doctor Sampson to do a test?"

Will tongued the disc to his cheek to speak. "That's where Beni took me first. Rachel was busy with Louis, so Beni brought me here."

"That was Beni, not you. Something unbalanced you enough to make you not act."

"The call from Jacob was a bit of a shock." Will's hands were back on the couch, eyes looked at the carpet instead of the shrink's face.

"Jacob is your previous lover?"

Will grimaced. "Yeah."

"You did not part on good terms."

"No, but we both agreed it was for the best."

"Why?"

"Why did we agree to part ways?"

"Why did you break up in the first place?"

Will hunched over again, his arm being drawn across his middle as his teeth crunched down on the now thinner cinnamon disc. "A bunch of small things I guess. He rarely let me come over to his place. He was spending more and more time with his firm. I wanted to go out more..."

"Small things usually become a very big thing over time," prompted Balcuwitz.

Will took a deep, steadying breath through his mouth, letting the tingle of cinnamon sweeten the air. It had been a big thing. One big thing that made all the small things fit into place like bricks into a wall.

"There was a small gala at Jacob's firm, a charity fundraiser. I saw the invitation and thought he would need a plus one. He never asked me, but he was still going. When I confronted him about it I found out he didn't want to come out to his boss and his firm. And him showing up with his "occasional roommate" would mess up his image. I took offence at that. Like he was hiding me. Like we were something to be ashamed of and I wasn't worth the risk.

"We didn't last long after that. I kept insinuating that he was a coward to not come out, he kept saying I was a child that didn't know the real world. I was trying to find a new job near the end of our relationship. That's when the Watch picked up on me. When I found out the training would take me out of Iowa, I made a choice." Will dragged up a smile. "Plus he dissed my Star Wars figurines. That was a definite nope."

"What made you like him in the first place?"

"I had gotten out of a... complicated relationship." And Will did not want to dig back into that nest of vipers. Jacob was the focus of this problem. "I wasn't looking for anyone at the time but then he showed up. He was cute, he could laugh, it was late at a bar while I was between interviews and instead of buying me a drink he bought me nachos."

"Sounds like an alright start," said Balcuwitz.

"I had a real low bar set for a relationship at the time. He started talking law and land rights, I started talking environmental responsibility. It kinda went from there." Will was now purposefully peeling off the plastic wrap around him, taking shredded handfuls and tipping them over into the trash bin like shards of ice. "Makes me wonder just how serious he thought of us if he was fucking another guy on the side. Unless I made him that miserable about coming out."

"You feel guilty about your arguments with him."

"Yeah." And he could see why it would be risky to be out in the workplace; not every person Jacob would come across would be accepting. But it still stung that Jacob had been some damning about it.

"His decision to not be monogamous was not your fault. You did not drive him to find someone else to be intimate with." Balcuwitz finished off his last bit of liquorices. "It's hard having something from your past brought back in such a harsh manner."

"Definitely."

"How do you feel?"

"Wrung out?"

"The past does that to great effect." Balcuwitz nodded and then clapped his hands. "Well, now that we have that laid out, I'm going to guess Doctor Sampson is done working with Agent Patriarch. Now would be a good time to get the HIV test started."

"Med Tech can do that in house?" Will couldn't imagine Watch labs doing something as banal as a test of a sexually transmitted disease.

"Yes. With all the confidentiality of a hospital or clinic," assured Balcuwitz. He rose off his folded chair, tugging down his sweater vest. "Now, we still have a session set for later this afternoon. Would you like to change it for tomorrow or would you like to come back?"

Will also stood, brushing off the plastic wrap that had crawled under his thighs and stuck to his jeans. "Can I come back after the test results?"

"Of course." Balcuwitz opened the door, cracking the shell of privacy. The smell of cinnamon candy faded. "Follow me."

Will walked with him down the hall. The few people he passed didn't look at him any differently, but he could still imagine everyone seeing a disease in his body. It was a little like walking around with Louis in his belly during test day. He knew there was something different, but others could only guess.

After a few steps Will stopped. "Aren't we going to Rachel's lab?"

"Yes, of course. I—" Balcuwitz froze and then turned around. "It's that way, isn't it?"

Will nodded.

Balcuwitz patted down his pockets. "Damn, forgot my map in the office. Oh well. Lead the way, William."

"Just Will, please."