Pâtisserie: Chapter 1 - Shrink
#1 of Pâtisserie
Heyoooooo everybody! This is my first official Zootopia fanfiction, which is honestly a long time coming. I've been obsessed with this movie since it came out, spending countless hours and $$$ on it. I also have a particular infatuation with the character of Gideon Grey, whom I believe does not get nearly enough love. Despite having very little screentime, like maybe 5 minutes tops, he is very well fleshed out and shows legitimate character growth. He started out as a nasty, temperamental bully who seeks out and antagonizes people who are weaker than him, who he knows he can overpower. And the movie could've left it at that, leaving him as nothing more than a childhood obstacle to Judy. But INSTEAD, the movie acknowledges that he wasn't just an obstacle, he was a living, breathing person who existed outside his narrative function, with his own obstacles he was trying to overcome. So I thought, why not WRITE ABOUT IT!? Also, this story is going to get pretty intense, and may also include some adult stuff later on. Anyway I have a pretty decent backlog of chapters, which I will be posting every Thursday. So sit tight and hold on to your butts as I present to you, Pâtisserie.
Chapter 1: Shrink
Helga Federkiel, Psy.D.
The name was engraved on the frosted glass door in stark, black font, like the limbs of a burned out tree on top of freshly fallen snow.
Dammit, thought Gideon, gotta stop thinkin' abou' such things...
Gideon stood before the door, silently twiddling with his thumbs, his tail swishing with apprehension as he contemplated if he really wanted to go through with this. The hallway he was currently loitering in had a tacky floral pattern on the carpet, with equally tacky floral wallpaper. It smelled musty and used, like any commercial building from the 1970s. The scent was oddly comforting to the young portly fox, inhaling deeply as he rolled back and forth on the balls of his footpaws.
No one else was around, otherwise he would have never allowed himself to indulge in such a blatant display of weak body language. He was the tough, no nonsense Gideon Grey. The aggressive bully his peers feared upon his arrival. He was dominant, smug, arrogant and self-righteous. That's what everyone expected of him. That's what he expected of himself.
He had been thinking about coming here for quite a long while, always shrugging it off, always thinking it was nonsense. He had snickered along with Travis in the back row of the bleachers during the school assembly on mental health. It was organized by some bs group called the Mammal Suicide Prevention Corps, which consisted of a hideous orange banner with the letters MSPC displayed garishly across it, and a bunch of faux-sincere adults blabbing about how it's OK to ask for help, it's not your fault that you're depressed, our program has helped reduce teen suicide rates by 20%. Travis had called it all bullshit. And Gideon had verbally agreed. But when they mentioned free counseling sessions, something compelled him to sneak a flyer from the display table while Travis wasn't looking. He thought it was stupid. Why would he want to talk to a therapist? He didn't need help.
But every day, Gideon would come across him, and he would look at him from the far end of the classroom, or the library, or during lunch, or in the hallway, and a piece of Gideon would cry out in agony. And then he'd get angry. And then he'd knock over some dumb bunny carrying a stack of books. And then he'd get detention. And then his pa would belt him.
Now, three weeks later, here he was, standing in front of the door of some damned shrink. If his pa knew he was here... But he didn't. Gideon's grandfather thought he was in detention, again. Once he got home he'd get the belt again, but a detention whipping was better than any sign of emasculation. His grandfather would probably have a stroke at the thought. Gideon smirked to himself imagining the scenario.
"My kin seein' a goddamn psych- psycholg- aww fuck it!"
His pa always struggled with bigger words, and thus Gideon had learned to keep his more poetically inclined musings to himself, among other things. His pa abhorred the very idea of any boy in his family displaying _faggy _behavior. When he was younger his pa had beat him for offering a bouquet of dandelions to his grandmother. When he cried too loud afterwards he got ten more lashes.
"Real men don' fuckin' cry!" he had said.
And so Gideon had learned not to cry. And he had learned not to pick flowers, or sway his hips when he danced, or go anywhere near the kitchen. He only did 'manly' things, like plowing the cornfield behind his pa's farmhouse, or chopping firewood in the scorching July sun, or planting nighthowler bulbs around the crops, or picking nettles out of the garden without gloves. It didn't matter if it hurt, because real men don't fucking cry. At least not when other mammals are watching.
Finally, Gideon stretched out his paw towards the translucent glass of the door, tapping out a few terse knocks. Almost immediately a cheerful female voice responded with "Come in!" Opening the door, the worn out hinges on the frame softly squeaked as Gideon peeked into the room. It was a decent size, about the same as the principal's office at Bunnyburrow High School, with a hideous green carpet accentuated by an equally hideous beige wallpaper. Bookshelfs covered the wall directly opposite the door, and to his right a red stool, armchair and a red couch circled a glass coffee table. To his left an oak desk littered with papers sat in front of a small window overlooking Bunnyburrow's town square. Sitting at the desk with her myriad quills protruding from her back, a pantsuit wearing middle-aged porcupine observed Gideon over her green half-moon glasses. There was a small smirk on the corner of her muzzle as she took in the sight of Gideon, 16-year-old overweight fox standing in her doorway wearing dirty overalls and looking like he'd rather be anywhere but here. Standing up, her quills shuffling about behind her, she approached Gideon with an outstretched paw.
"I'm Dr. Federkiel, how can I help you?" she asked with a barely discernible German accent. At this moment, Gideon panicked somewhat, not exactly knowing how to respond. Stepping further into the room, he ignored Dr. Federkiel's hand and instead fumbled with his pockets as he pulled out the flyer he'd grabbed from the assembly.
Showing the crumpled paper to the porcupine, he uncharacteristically stammered "Ah-ah-ah ah was here a-a-about the free... uh... sessions..." Although he knew the doctor couldn't see it, he felt his face heat up as he blushed beneath the red fur on his muzzle. Dr. Federkiel took the paper gently from Gideon's slightly trembling paw.
"Oh wonderful!" she exclaimed. "Come in! Come in! Take a seat wherever you like, except for the stools, those are mine." She smirked playfully as she gestured to her quills which made normal chairs unusable to her.
Gideon shuffled over to the red couch, noticing several coffee stains on it's corduroy surface. He plopped down heavily and awkwardly held his hands in his lap. Dr. Federkiel sat on the stool across the coffee table and positively beamed with almost oppressive joy.
"So, I'm assuming you were at one of the MSPC assemblies?" she asked.
Gideon nodded slowly.
"We have many chapters across the Tri-Burrows, but you're the first predator I've ever had walk through my door. What's your name, dear?" she pulled out a notepad and pen from the right side of her suit jacket, crossing her legs as she started to scribble across the paper.
"Uh... G-Gideon, ma'am. Gideon Grey. Bu' most folks jus' call me Gid." Gideon looked at his footpaws as he spoke, avoiding eye contact with the cheerful mammal.
Dr. Federkiel just smiled warmly and said "It's good to meet you, Gideon. Which school do you go to? Bunnyburrow High?" Gideon nodded again.
"Good, good." She got up and walked over to one of the bookshelves, pulling down a large binder labelled 'BBH'. Leafing through the pages she apparently found what she was looking for, as she sat back down across from Gideon and read from the binder.
"Grey, Gideon. 16 years old. Sophomore. History of aggression and bullying. Multiple anger control classes with school counselors. Hmm. Do your grandparents know you're here?" she asked nonchalantly.
Gideon's eyes widened in shock and a little fear as he considered what he should say. He hadn't expected the doctor to have information on him so readily, nor did he expect to be asked if he had parental approval. Dr. Federkiel picked up immediately on his body language and quickly said, "It's okay if they don't, dear. We have a special partnership with your school district. Nothing you say here will go anywhere else unless you threaten to harm yourself or others. Do you understand?" Gideon looked up briefly and locked eyes with the doctor. The empathy he saw there calmed him considerably, and he murmured out a soft acknowledgement.
"Excellent." said Dr. Federkiel. "Now then, what brings you here today, Gideon?"
Again, Gideon didn't quite know how to answer. He knew he wanted to be here, he knew he wanted to talk to someone, but he didn't know why, and he told the doctor exactly that.
"Ah... ah don' rightly know ma'am... Ah guess ah want ya ta fix me."
"Fix you?" Dr. Federkiel looked puzzled. "What do you think needs fixing?"
Seeing the doctor's confused expression, he thought he may have done this all wrong. But despite this he kept on talking, stumbling through his words as Dr. Federkiel started to write into her notepad.
"Ah shit I'm sorry ma'am... Ah guess ah... ahm a very.. angry mammal. Ah get mad all the time. Ah don' wanna hurt nobody. And ah was gittin' purty good at not gittin' too mad. But now ah've been gittin' worse. And ah want ya ta fix me so as ah don' get in more trouble and so my pa won'..." Gideon stopped there, clamping his jaw shut.
Dr. Federkiel paused in her note-taking and glanced up once Gideon stopped talking.
"It's okay, dear." she spoke gently. "I'll do the best I can to 'fix' you as you so aptly put it. Though I'm not entirely sure you're broken to begin with."
Gideon was perplexed. "How can ya be so sure?"
Dr. Federkiel put down her pencil and looked Gideon in the eye as she said, "Well, for starters, why don't you tell me why you think you're getting worse?"
Despite not knowing why he was there to begin with, and despite every impulse telling him to run, Gideon immediately knew the answer.
"It's him."
"Him?" Asked the porcupine, befuddled by Gideon's answer.
"Ya. Him. Bobby Catmull."