New Horizons (7/10)
Title: New Horizons
Fandom: Brothers and Sisters
Rating: R
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Length: ~15,000
Characters: Justin, Kitty, Kevin, Sarah, Nora, and Tommy
Icon: danielle_nahimi
Warning: Contains references to sexual abuse and rape.
Summary: In which Justin leaves rehab, and the family struggles to deal as something disturbing comes to light.
Chapter seven
In which Kevin makes tea
Kevin carried his mug of tea back to his desk and set it down on a coaster. He scrolled through the brief he was writing on his laptop, and tried to regather his thoughts. With one thing and another he had a huge amount of work to clear over the weekend and although it was a little bit pathetic to be working late on a Friday night he was glad of the opportunity to catch up. Kevin’s life plan included being made partner before too many more years had passed, and he knew that hours of hard work were the only way that could be achieved.
There was a knock at the door, which broke his concentration. Kevin looked at the clock and decided that it must be his neighbour Andrew, who liked to go to the bar straight after work on a Friday and invariably left his keys in a cab a couple of times a year. He grabbed Andrew’s spare key from the drawer in the table by the door and looked through the peep-hole.
Kitty was standing in the hall, clutching her phone in one hand. He opened the door.
“Kitty,” he started, but she cut him off.
“Kevin, I’m so sorry.” She was still standing in the hall, hair and coat damp from the light rain that was falling outside. “You were right and I was wrong, and I said a couple of awful things and I would never want you to think that I don’t love you with all my heart. You’re my little brother.”
Kevin smiled; a face-splitting grin. “Get in here, Kitty.”
She stepped over the threshold and into Kevin’s apartment.
“Do you want tea and a towel,” he asked, waving at the drips Kitty was making on the parquet floor. “I have a cup already.”
“Tea would be nice.” Kitty slipped off her jacket and hung it on the coatstand and then sat down on the sofa and pulled Kevin’s Liza cushion onto her lap, like a protective shield.
Kevin came back from the kitchen with her mug of tea and snagged his own from the desk. Kitty balanced the mug on Liza’s face and wrapped her fingers around the hot ceramic.
“So, how are you doing?” Kevin sounded tentative.
“Oh, good. Busy. We need to start thinking about what we’re doing for Mom’s 60th birthday; I must phone Sara to see if she’ll co-ordinate it all with me. Poor Mom, she never gets a party like the ones she organises for all of us. The food at the things we host for her is always a particular let down so this time I was thinking we need to find a better caterer.”
“Not exactly what I meant, Kit.”
“Oh, that.” She looked at Kevin’s fireplace, festooned with family photographs in frames. “I thought a lot about what you said, and I think you’re right.” She paused. “I think what Brent did was rape.”
Kevin shifted uncomfortably on the sofa. Kitty shot him a look.
“Buddy, if you think that word is hard to hear then trust me that it’s even harder to say.”
“Kitty, I’m really sorry. I know this isn’t about me, it’s just that I feel cosmically ill-equipped to say anything helpful.”
“I’m not looking for you to fix me, Kevin. I’m still exactly the same person. Strangely, I ended up talking about it with Justin.”
“Justin?”
“Yeah, I guess his experiences in Iraq give him a lot of insight into other kinds of…, “ Kitty groped for the right word. “Things. He’s a lot different than he was. He was really unemotional about the whole thing; I suppose that once you’ve overcome drug addiction and PTSD from seeing your friends killed in action that there isn’t too much that phases you.”
“He’s maybe taking his lead from you. You seemed more pissed off by me suggesting that it was rape, than you felt anything at all about the experience itself.”
“I think I was. I’m not really sure what to think or feel.” Kitty looked at the fireplace again. ”I mean, looking back I think that it did affect me in lots of different ways. I think it made me different than what I would have been. And right now, when it’s at the forefront of my mind I feel bad; I feel like a stranger in my own skin, and like everything is subtly wrong. But I’m also struggling to organise my thoughts and work out what I really think. And for that reason, I’m going to start seeing a therapist.”
“I’m sorry that you’re feeling so bad, but I think it’s an excellent idea to see someone. Do you want the name of my therapist?” Kevin reached for the case on the coffee table that he kept business cards in. “I really liked her, although I don’t know if you want to see a specialist?”
Kitty looked at Kevin, and then took the card that he was offering her. “You saw a therapist? When? Why?”
Kevin sighed. “Sometimes it’s not easy being a Walker.”
Kitty raised an eyebrow. “What does that mean?”
“Oh come on, Kitty!” Kevin was exasperated. “We’re not the Waltons. You had that huge estrangement from Mom over Justin joining up, Dad and I never got along and after I came out it became clear that we never would, everyone is always in to everyone’s business in a way that just becomes ridiculously suffocating sometimes, I’m gay in a world that doesn’t really like that kind of thing, and my brother’s future child might really be mine.”
Kitty looked at Kevin, eyes shining. “Yeah. I think we’re basically a happy family but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t hard work.” She sipped her tea. “Kevin, something else I’ve been thinking about this past couple of days is how I just brushed off your concerns about me going to work for Senator McAllister.”
Kevin sighed. “I really don’t want to get into that again.”
“We don’t agree on the whole issue of how important his position is on gay marriage to whether or not he’s a good man, but I realise how easy that is for me to say when it doesn’t affect me.” She gestured with both hands, to emphasise her point. “I wasn't on your side, and you're almost always on mine. It struck me even when I was yelling at you to get out of my room how you had immediately believed me. You didn’t ask me if I was so wasted I gave him the wrong impression, or what I was wearing, or…”
“Kitty, you know that nothing you said, or wore, or did would give him the right to do anything without your willing participation?” Kevin looked concerned.
“Well, that’s the theory, Kevin, but plenty of people don’t really believe that.”
“I’m not one of them, Kit. I hope no one in our family would ever blame you for what happened when clearly it is solely Brent fucking Wallace’s responsibility, and no one else’s.” Kevin really wanted to reach for her hand, but the way she was sitting and the positioning of Liza suggested that Kitty did not want him to. She looked far away, and he didn't really want to think too hard about what was going through her mind.
Kitty blinked. “Speaking of the family, I’m not going to tell Tommy, Sarah, or Mom yet. Do you think that’s OK? I just need some more time to process all of this.”
Kevin looked guilty. “Actually, Sarah already knows.”
“Fuck, Kevin.” Kitty looked shaken. “I know you have your reputation as the family gossip maven to protect, but this is ridiculous. I trusted you not to blab something I didn’t even want to discuss with you.”
“It wasn’t like that, Kitty.” Kevin thought how ironic it was that he had said that same thing to Sarah when reassuring her that Kitty wasn’t deliberately freezing her out. “You completely freaked out and I had no idea what to do. Sarah knows about this stuff, and I needed her expert advice.”
“What did she say?” Kitty did not sound mollified by Kevin’s explanation.
“She was obviously upset that you had been hurt, but she said that you were strong and she had every faith in your ability to deal with this.”
Kitty smiled, tears in her eyes. “That’s probably the nicest thing she’s ever said about me. God knows, we disagree about almost everything else.”
“You’ll always have your shared irritation with Mom. And now Holly.”
“True.” Kitty stretched. “Kevin, thanks for the tea and the talk, but it’s late and I need to get back to Mom’s.” She picked up her phone and keys from the coffee table. “Do you think it’s really terrible that I haven’t told her yet?”
“I think who you tell is up to you, but I do think that you’re maybe avoiding some painful and necessary feelings by not telling her.”
Kitty looked at her brother. “How so?”
“Well, she’s going to be so upset that her baby was hurt, just like Sarah and I were about you. Sometimes, if we don’t want to feel that pain ourselves, it can be hard to see people feeling it for us.” Kevin was quiet for a second. “I told Scotty about Dad’s reaction to finding out I was gay. His own parents are total Leviticus-loving homophobes, so I was really surprised when my experience actually made him cry. After meeting you all he clearly thinks you’re insane, but he sees Dad’s reaction as somehow marginalising me within the family.”
Kitty considered. “I think that’s fair. I think that all of Mom’s acceptance probably didn’t compensate for Dad’s clear and evident disappointment.”
“No, it didn’t.”
“How is it that Anna Karenina starts? ‘Happy families are all alike, and every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way’?” Kitty left the thought hanging.
Kevin shook his head. “I think you were right earlier. We are a basically happy family, but sometimes the people you are born to and brought up with can’t give you everything you need.”
Kevin stood up when Kitty did and walked her over to the door.
“Thanks, Kevin. This whole thing is awful but I’m glad you said what you did. I’m glad you didn’t let me sweep this under the carpet like I’ve been doing my whole life.”
“You’ll do fine, Kit. I’m glad you came over tonight.”
She sketched a wave and walked through the door Kevin was holding open for her. He watched her walk down the corridor to the elevators, and then went back to his desk. He still had a brief to finish.
( Part eight)