First Session: Sam

When someone came in voluntarily, he knew nothing about their situation outside of what they told him. When someone was referred to him, on the other hand, he knew a great deal more. Mandatory therapy came with mandatory disclosures, and after one unfortunate run in in the past, Valli made a point of reading them very carefully.

The information was clear enough. Samson was aggressive and hesitant to trust, a fighter to the end. His blindness was noted, his past with the triad's given the absolute most basic outline, and a general jist of the incident that had gotten him referred to Valli in the first place. Valli didn't like putting too much stock in reports like that, finding them to be overly technical, but it did give him things to keep an eye on.

Like the fact that he was blind. He'd never had a blind patient before, but mention that Samson had supernatural adaptations to compensate eased his worries.

Even so, it was a relief when there was a knock at the door, and Valli glanced up, calling out for Samson to come in as he pushed himself out of his chair.

"You must be Samson?" Valli said as he closed the door behind him. "Welcome to my office - you can take a seat where you'd like, and then we can get started."

In reality, Sam would have won in a fight by a decisive margin. Valli was not a strong opponent by any metric. Even a child could likely have beaten him, since he had absolutely no experience with any sort of fighting. He had signed up for self defense classes in the aftermath of one unfortunate session, but he'd yet to actually find the time to go. He was too busy to take the time out to go and participate.

One day, maybe.

Valli let out a small chuckle at Samson's impatience, stepping back over to grab a seat in his own chair. There was no desk between them, and the entire room had very much been set up to place them on the same level. He found anything else was too clinical for him, and distanced him from his patients too much.

"My name is Valli Bryndísarson. I'll be working with you through the mandatory therapy period, and hopefully beyond that. Before we start anything, I want to establish a few quick disclosures. One: Anything you say here is absolutely confidential. I can only break that confidentiality if I believe that you or someone else is in immediate danger. Two: If I run into you in public, I won't acknowledge you unless you acknowledge me first. We'll be like strangers. And three, my power-"

Valli paused, considering, and then realized it didn't matter. "Actually, ignore three. My power wouldn't have any effect on you since you're blind, so it's a non-issue."

"Any questions about all this?"

"If I think you pose a danger to yourself, but you disagree, then I'm afraid I'm still required to report it to ensure that you aren't harmed," Valli said. "It's only happened a few times, thankfully." As far as Valli was concerned, the less he had to the better.

"As for what you're doing here... You were referred primarily because of issues with agression, although I'd like to hear how you feel about that."

Some people recognized their own anger issues, and others thought they were just fine, but they required two different approaches.

"Otherwise, you're here to have someone who you can speak to and confide in, who can give advice and help work through whatever might be bothering you." Which was probably giving himself too much credit, but that was the point.

Valli didn't miss the grin, although he didn't think too much of it. Those who were there for mandatory therapy tended to be the worst patients for a reason, and their refusal to believe anyone could ever help them tended to be very high on the list.

"Correct," Valli said. He'd already introduced himself and gone over the basics, which meant there was no reason not to start.

"I assume you don't feel that aggressive? Or am I wrong?"

People loved proving him wrong when they didn't want to be there.

Valli was normally very calm in sessions. He'd had hundreds of sessions without issues, and only a very small fraction which did. Cases where a patient hurt their therapist were few and far between, and often made the news when they did.

Only Valli had just been the victim of one such event. A patient had, in a rage, lost control of their powers and injured him. It hadn't been serious, but he'd been lucky to not need stitches, and the threat--even if it didn't seem genuine--made his heart speed up for a moment.

No, he reminded himself. He'd said he wasn't stupid, and that wasn't how things worked.

"Someone who isn't stupid," Valli pointed out, as much to make a point as it was to calm himself down, "wouldn't assault someone who was no threat to them."