Sometimes...
After much hemming and hawing (and a margarita), I finally am gonna put my journal to use with a little oz drabbling ;p
title: Sometimes
disclaimer: OZ and associated characters belong to HBO. I just like to borrow and play with them a bit.
summary: A bit of first person POV drabble, Beecher's reflections on Keller post-S6.
author's unncessarily long comments: It's a bit on the long side of drabble (1000+ words), but I'm sticking with the label as it something of a dissociated stream of thought which doesn't really fit as a "story". It's quite rough, as I wrote it in one sitting and did not look back. I'm not entirely happy with it, and I sat around and looked at it for awhile but haven't quite put my finger on what is bothering me. I'm going ahead and posting because I know if I don't post something now, I'll make more excuses for chickening out later. Since it's just a drabble, no beta, just my re-read before post. Also, it's not the most outstandly original thing ever, but at this point it's all me trying to get back into the groove. From my nervous internet chatter, perhaps it's not working as well as I hoped.
***
Sometimes I wonder what made Chris the way he was.
Was he born that way? Too simple an answer. Too easy an excuse. I know better than to believe the world is so black and white, cut and dry. It’s possible Keller was born different, but that did not make him into the man I met at OZ.
Sometimes I wonder if Chris had told so many lies that he forgot himself.
They say the best liars are the ones with the best memories, those that can remember the tales they weave. And Keller was a good liar. But I couldn’t help but think that he sacrificed himself to his lies.
They try and tell me the real Keller is the one who hurts other people, who kills. The real Keller is a predator. They say I am deluded if I believe the real Keller is the one who clings to me in the dark, the one who desperately needs my love and my approval.
Maybe they are right. Maybe the vulnerable Keller who cares for me is the lie, and the possessive Keller who would as soon kill me as fuck me is the truth.
Does it matter?
Sometimes I wonder if Chris heard so many lies that he made them a part of himself.
People are always ready to believe the worst about you.
I should know. Keller had done cruel things to me. He lied to me. He hurt me. He betrayed me. I had every reason to believe him capable of killing my son. Even for all his lies, he did not deny being a murderer.
But he also forgave me. He protected me. He would kill for me. He would die for me. I… trusted him again. Foolish as it might have been, I did.
And it only took one whispered rumor from the lips of a criminal I did not know to convince me that he mutilated my son… that he robbed me of my joy. I had shared more with Keller than I had anyone else in my life: the strongest hate and the fiercest love. Zabitz and I had shared absolute dick.
I believed Zabitz.
And I think that fact hurt Keller more than I’ll ever understand.
You see, I’ve come to believe Chris became Keller because of what others believed about him.
He killed those gay men on the outside because they represented a truth in his lie, one he could not cope with. I don’t know who told him this lie. His parents, his friends, society at large… whichever it was, he could not accept his love for men. So he destroyed it.
But that is too simple. Homophobia alone did not make Keller who he is.
At some point, Chris was a child in need of affection. Someone told him he did not deserve it. That was the first lie he made a part of himself.
How can you protect yourself from the lies of others? I think Chris’ solution was a simple one: to fight fire with fire, and lies with lies. Leave everyone guessing as to who and what he was, and no one could hurt him anymore, right?
I proved him wrong.
Maybe I give myself too much credit. But I had been picking up bits and pieces of the Chris that he lied to protect. I know that was him, the one he kept forcing back behind the web of his lies. No way would Keller lie to be that person… the needy one… the insecure one. It was so rare, but it was there. Underlying the predator’s need to possess, there was the forgotten man who needed to be loved.
And I loved that man. He loved like there were no boundaries. He wanted to please, to prove he did deserve my love. Sometimes he was selfish… but he never forgot about me and my needs. He was selfish in that he wanted to be the only one to fulfill them.
Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like if that Chris had a chance to grow up, rather than being strangled and stunted at a young age.
The real Chris saw something in me that made my affections worth more than everything else. Worth more than his life… worth more than even his lies.
I did something horrible. I believed Zabitz’s lies. I believed Keller’s lies. Lies about a man who lived in Keller’s body who was so selfish that he would see my children dead before he shared my love with them. I should have known that, as much as he wanted to be the only one in my life, he would never endanger my trust… my belief in him… for even a moment of undivided attention.
I sent the real Chris diving behind that shield of half truths and deceptions. No, what I did was more violent than that. I crucified that Chris on those half truths and deceptions.
I believed the lie and made it real, made it a part of him. After that, everything changed. He still sacrificed in my name, claiming to have killed Hank to protect me… but it wasn’t for me anymore. It wasn’t even for him. It was for the lie. For the manipulator who would do anything to make someone trust him.
That manipulator was good. He had me a few times… I thought I had called the real Chris back into Oz.
All along Sister Pete, McManus, Doctor Nathan… they all told me the lie was the truth. That Keller was an animal. And when I believed it, when Chris lost his last foothold in Oz, he became the animal.
Chris Keller didn’t die when he hurled himself over the railing. He died when I pulled a shank on him for killing my son. He died when I buried it in what remained of his belief in himself and gave over to the lie.
I did not kill his body. My crime is far worse. I killed his soul.
Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I had believed in Chris.
I hold no delusions that my love would have cured him of the lies, that the predator would die, that he would ever stop hurting me. But I like to think he would have tried.
And I would have suffered through it all for the real Chris. I wanted to protect his soul the way Keller had defended me in the hallways of Oz.
I failed him.
Sometimes I wonder if I am as crazy as they say, if I made these theories up to explain why my heart belongs to a cold blooded killer who died years ago, in Oz.
I don’t think I care. If they are lies, they are comforting lies, and I’d like for them to be real.
I believe in him.