Octonauts Oneshots

Dashi's therapy club Part 2

A/N) this happens a few days after the first part. Hope you enjoy and prepare for some Peso cuteness :)

Dashi's urge to help her teammates faded slowly over the next few days, but after four days, Shellington approached her privately.

"Hey Shel," she smiled, getting up off her bed and kissing the sea otter. "How you doing?"

Shellington bit his lip. There was something off with his demeanor. He wasn't enthusiastic, like usual. That or dead on his feet. It wasn't either, though. It was... Dashi froze.

Was Shellington feeling... down?

Mentally she kicked herself. Why shouldn't the marine biologist feel down sometime? Experiments failed, animals remained elusive on a daily basis. That was practically part of the job description, after all.

"I've just... I've just been feeling off."

Ah. So he was here for therapy. Dashi resumed her cross-legged-on-bed therapist position and invited Shellington to sit next to her.

"Tell me about it," she said patiently. The sea otter looked off out of the window at a passing porpoise, composing his thoughts. 

"I've..."

More composing of thoughts.

"I've been thinking of home recently."

"Yes..?" Dashi said cautiously, knowing that the topic of his childhood was sensitive to Shellington.

"And I've been thinking about Pearl. And most of all about my mother."

The porpoise of thought composition once again became Shellington's focus.

"And... I suppose... Look I don't want you to think that I... that I would leave but..."

"Leave?" Dashi asked, genuinely caught off guard.

"No, it's not that it's just that... Sometimes I just feel useless. There. I said it. That's what's been weighing down on me recently. I'm... I'm useless."

"No you're... What do you mean?" Dashi asked slowly, trying to unravel her boyfriends tangle of emotions. A brilliant scientist he may be, but Shellington had clearly not yet figured out how to explain his thought process. 

"I just mean that... Well, what's Kwazii's role?"

Dashi frowned at the question in confusion. What was Shellington doing?

"Well... He's our lieutenant. He goes out on missions. He saves people. He gets himself into trouble."

"Yes, and what's Tweak's?"

"She fixes things. She builds us Gups."

"Peso?"

"Helps us recover. Looks after sick creatures."

"The Vegimals?"

"They cook. Their fish biscuits get us out of trouble."

"I... I haven't figured out an answer for me yet, that's the thing."

Dashi stared at the sea otter, who was looking at the porpoise again. She had always known this side of him, the side that doubted himself, but she never thought it would be so problematic that he would seek therapy. Not that it was a good thing, but Shellington usually covered up his problems.

Whatever the reason was, she needed to help him.

"Well... What do you do?" she asked him gently.

"I... I break test tubes. I crash gups. My experiments aren't even useful. All I do is get myself in trouble, create problems. I... I am a problem."