One of the issues with the breaking of the original Curse was that Archie had had to help so many people reconcile having two lifetimes in their heads while having to constantly push his own issues with the same problem to the back of his mind. Seeing the puppets of Geppetto's parents in the front window of Gold's shop had been the final straw to push him to be among the first headed for the town line to lose their Enchanted Forest memories. It was hard enough having one life of misery constantly in your head without having two...technically four in Archie's case because he'd been a thief, a conscience, a thief again, and then a psychiatrist.
During those sessions, he'd learned everyone's stories, both their Enchanted Forest ones and their Storybrooke ones. He strongly believed that the Curse had taken the path of least resistence in regards to building those Cursed memories: creating lives that echoed their original ones but then taking away whatever would've given them a happy ending. He had plenty of anecdotal evidence to support the theory, but he kept his findings to himself due to both doctor-patient confidentiality and due to knowing if he shared his personal experiences, Dr. Archie Hopper and Jiminy Cricket were both done.
Nobody asked whom they considered a living conscience about his own struggles. If the person they relied on to keep themselves stable was barely holding it together, how could they trust him to help them? And in a bizarre twist of fate, as miserable as his Cursed existence had been, the Curse hadn't truly touched him until after it was broken: He'd had a good job that had kept him comfortable, two best friends in the form of a dog and an older gentleman, and Marco wasn't a patient so he could proverbially let his hair down around him, show that he wasn't as put-together as his patients desperately needed to believe. With the Curse broken, the illusion had shattered. He still had Pongo, but he'd effectively lost Marco. As good a listener as Pongo was, the intelligent dog couldn't talk to him, and going to a bar to have a few drinks and bend the ear of a sympathetic bartender was absolutely out of the question due to the same issues as before. Some nights he stayed late in his office or stayed up late in his home sipping bourbon and quietly petting Pongo in hopes that maybe whatever worry or care that was bothering him would just go back on the backburner so he could be able to handle other people's problems again the next day. Not the healthiest coping mechanisms, but at least he only had a glass or two on the rare occasions he needed to use them. Though he kept that bottle of bourbon in his office under lock and key in his desk lest someone think he was secretly a raging alcoholic.
He leaned forward for a moment, clasping his hands together and resting his forehead against them as he took slow, deep breaths. Then, after a long moment of silence to tell his demons to come back another time, please and thank you, he sat back up.
no subject
During those sessions, he'd learned everyone's stories, both their Enchanted Forest ones and their Storybrooke ones. He strongly believed that the Curse had taken the path of least resistence in regards to building those Cursed memories: creating lives that echoed their original ones but then taking away whatever would've given them a happy ending. He had plenty of anecdotal evidence to support the theory, but he kept his findings to himself due to both doctor-patient confidentiality and due to knowing if he shared his personal experiences, Dr. Archie Hopper and Jiminy Cricket were both done.
Nobody asked whom they considered a living conscience about his own struggles. If the person they relied on to keep themselves stable was barely holding it together, how could they trust him to help them? And in a bizarre twist of fate, as miserable as his Cursed existence had been, the Curse hadn't truly touched him until after it was broken: He'd had a good job that had kept him comfortable, two best friends in the form of a dog and an older gentleman, and Marco wasn't a patient so he could proverbially let his hair down around him, show that he wasn't as put-together as his patients desperately needed to believe. With the Curse broken, the illusion had shattered. He still had Pongo, but he'd effectively lost Marco. As good a listener as Pongo was, the intelligent dog couldn't talk to him, and going to a bar to have a few drinks and bend the ear of a sympathetic bartender was absolutely out of the question due to the same issues as before. Some nights he stayed late in his office or stayed up late in his home sipping bourbon and quietly petting Pongo in hopes that maybe whatever worry or care that was bothering him would just go back on the backburner so he could be able to handle other people's problems again the next day. Not the healthiest coping mechanisms, but at least he only had a glass or two on the rare occasions he needed to use them. Though he kept that bottle of bourbon in his office under lock and key in his desk lest someone think he was secretly a raging alcoholic.
He leaned forward for a moment, clasping his hands together and resting his forehead against them as he took slow, deep breaths. Then, after a long moment of silence to tell his demons to come back another time, please and thank you, he sat back up.
"So where do we go from here?"