Psych Out

Fingers lacing between frozen cubes and ducking underneath chilled water with more speed then grace, a small seed was salvaged from the glass and tossed unceremoniously onto a plate. Her lips pursed and a small smile shifted into place. "Gotchya."

The lemon now officially and fully removed, her hand clasped the tea and brought it up to her lips, the cool drink sloshing down her throat with gusto. "Thirsty?" the man asked, watching a stray drop of water race down the cup and hesitate upon reaching the bottom.

She set it down, nodded mutely, and picked up her pencil. Back to the notebook. He sighed, an errant finger moving to twist his straw in small circles. "I brought you out here so we could hang out."

She shrugged, scribbling with a catalystic fury. "You know...as a family, " he pressed. A faint, immeasurable pause, a stutter of the pen, she was writing again. He waited, a slow disintegration of hope crumbling from his features. "Still mad, huh?"

Her nod wasn't exactly necessary, but she felt as if his sentence kind of hung in the air with the fury of awkward trepidations. A shrug of shoulders, the flick of ink across a page, and a small bite snagged off the edge of a hamburger, and her comfort zone returned, although tentatively.

His throat choked in a faint desire to figure out what words to use, the splash of a messy explanation tripping on his tongue and catching at the teeth. Only a bubble of air managed to sigh past his lips, unsure of itself. "You know...this is basic denial and isolation."

"And you know we're not in the clinic. Shut the Hell up and let me write," she hissed, glaring over her iced tea. "I'm not your precious little baby girl anymore, Dad. You can't just psychoanalyze me and figure out how I can be manipulated." Her eyes narrowed. "I know what you've done."

Elbows rubbed in close on the table and his shoulders dipped upward in what could have been a relaxed, positive posture. "Considering the circumstances, I'm going to ignore your filthy mouth." He smiled, gently, "And what I've done was for the greater good."

Scribbling increased, a strangled huff echoed around the fries and ketchup bottles as a seagull shrieked outside. "The greater good," she whispered, mocking. "You're a psychologist and a serial killer." Her gaze flicked up to his. "I bet you torture them first."

"I would never - " He paused, the memories that danced across his brain evident in the crunch of fries as they fell victim underneath the touch of an iron fingernail. "Well, those who asked for it got it."

Her nose curled, and it wasn't quite due to the rank scent of a dirt encrusted mop sopping up the floor nearby."Dad. That's...wrong. Don't you understand that?"

"Honey." His expression was soft, moving in the sliver of sunlight that blinked passed a set of blinds. "When you finish your psychiatric degree, and listen to the words of those criminals day after day...you'll be able to understand." A small waft of air ruffled his hair and tickled the edges of his crinkled eyes, making him seem all the more...friendly.

The girl tried her hardest not to get sick. Or angry. If he started to see her going through those stupid stages of grief or whatever else he decided to call it, she'd have to break out her Old Timer and watch the blood gurgle out of his dying neck. Her eyelids closed, mind rapidly focusing on the clink of dishes as some ignorant bus boy brushed by with his load. "I can't listen to you, Dad. You're crazy."

"No," her father whispered, reaching out to touch her cheek, the rough edge of his fingertips treading against her smooth skin in a simple gesture that beckoned her eyes meet his irritatingly polite smile. "I saved your life last night, remember?" His honey-like words seemed to drip around her ears, their reassurance and truth causing her notebook to end up closed tight next to the hash browns, a ball point pen twisting awkwardly next to it.

Despite herself, her lip trembled and her sight blurred in the light of something wet building on the edges of eyelids. "But...my boyfriend?" she mumbled, her throat catching and an unbidden sob shaking past her shoulders.

He grinned like Satan, tactfully estimating that this meant his child was only a few steps from accepting her new way of life. "That's my girl," he cooed. "Let all out - it's important not to allow pesky emotions to bottle up like this." With a little training, he decided while allowing the edge of his tongue to prod through teeth for stray morsels, there will soon be two of us to clean up this Godforsaken city.