FIC: Empty Roads (1/1) (Brothers & Sisters)
Title: Empty Roads
Rating: PG
Characters: Tommy
Summary: This is set around the time of the current episodes (season 2 episode 4). Tommy thinks about what his life has become. This is a very loose interpretation of the Songfic flashfic challenge (http://inlovewithnight.livejournal.com/1073106.html?view=8047826) by http://inlovewithnight.livejournal.com/
Starting on Tommy's thirteenth birthday, his father took him out, once a week, or once every other week, to drive on an empty, useless plot of land owned by Ojai. They used a beat-up pickup truck, blue paint peeling off, a truck older than most of William's kids. The stated goal was to teach Tommy to learn how to drive, but Tommy never really learned all that much. He just enjoyed being behind the wheel, being given the responsibility, having something he could control in a sea of pimples and hormones and wondering if his parents loved his brothers and sisters more than they loved him. He could put his whole life between gas and brake and watch the dust floating up from the barren dirt roads and feel like he had all the power in the world.
He sat in his jeep now, in the parking lot of the drug store where those dirt roads used to be, and pondered going to see Julia, mused over some fantasy scenario where she would tell him how much she loved and needed him. A nice fantasy, but no matter how fast he drove or how much dirt he turned up, he'd still feel like the most powerless man alive.
Of all his siblings, he'd never been the wittiest, or the most charismatic, or the one with the most glamorous personal problems, or the one everybody turned to in a crisis. All he could do was try to be the most solid, give them the least reason to feel he needed them. He knew his family often bounced off the walls surrounding him, but they'd trapped him in those walls in the first place. He wasn't upset, or angry; that's just the way things were.
Tommy had thought he could wait for a family of his own and then he'd be important, he'd be needed. Instead, he was impotent, in every sense of the word. All the glasses of scotch or business deals in the world couldn't blot out the look on Julia's face as she'd left with her parents. In her eyes, he was worthless. He'd seen that look so many times before in his life, usually from people who didn't know how obvious they were being, but from her, it hurt. No matter how much he tried to remind himself Julia needed help, all he could remember her for was being the woman who told him he had killed their son.
Getting used to the sound of car doors opening and shutting as people filed in and out for their prescriptions and discount Halloween supplies, Tommy was lulled into the closest he'd gotten to sleep in quite some time. Sometime later, the sound of an incoming text woke him from an uncomfortable position.
"C U soon...L"
Lena. Sometimes he still expected to hate himself for being with Lena. Every time he touched her, he expected to see visions of his mother hovering over his head, shrieking at him about being just like his father. Instead, he felt nothing. He had no real feelings for Lena, no responsibilities, nothing. She was a nice person who didn't have to understand him, didn't have to care, she just had to be there. Not judging him. Not making him feel like a disappointment.
He wiped his tired eyes and fished out Lena's home address from some scrap of paper put in his pocket. He was happy he at least had somewhere to go.
At least until he made her hate him, too.
Rating: PG
Characters: Tommy
Summary: This is set around the time of the current episodes (season 2 episode 4). Tommy thinks about what his life has become. This is a very loose interpretation of the Songfic flashfic challenge (http://inlovewithnight.livejournal.com/1073106.html?view=8047826) by http://inlovewithnight.livejournal.com/
Starting on Tommy's thirteenth birthday, his father took him out, once a week, or once every other week, to drive on an empty, useless plot of land owned by Ojai. They used a beat-up pickup truck, blue paint peeling off, a truck older than most of William's kids. The stated goal was to teach Tommy to learn how to drive, but Tommy never really learned all that much. He just enjoyed being behind the wheel, being given the responsibility, having something he could control in a sea of pimples and hormones and wondering if his parents loved his brothers and sisters more than they loved him. He could put his whole life between gas and brake and watch the dust floating up from the barren dirt roads and feel like he had all the power in the world.
He sat in his jeep now, in the parking lot of the drug store where those dirt roads used to be, and pondered going to see Julia, mused over some fantasy scenario where she would tell him how much she loved and needed him. A nice fantasy, but no matter how fast he drove or how much dirt he turned up, he'd still feel like the most powerless man alive.
Of all his siblings, he'd never been the wittiest, or the most charismatic, or the one with the most glamorous personal problems, or the one everybody turned to in a crisis. All he could do was try to be the most solid, give them the least reason to feel he needed them. He knew his family often bounced off the walls surrounding him, but they'd trapped him in those walls in the first place. He wasn't upset, or angry; that's just the way things were.
Tommy had thought he could wait for a family of his own and then he'd be important, he'd be needed. Instead, he was impotent, in every sense of the word. All the glasses of scotch or business deals in the world couldn't blot out the look on Julia's face as she'd left with her parents. In her eyes, he was worthless. He'd seen that look so many times before in his life, usually from people who didn't know how obvious they were being, but from her, it hurt. No matter how much he tried to remind himself Julia needed help, all he could remember her for was being the woman who told him he had killed their son.
Getting used to the sound of car doors opening and shutting as people filed in and out for their prescriptions and discount Halloween supplies, Tommy was lulled into the closest he'd gotten to sleep in quite some time. Sometime later, the sound of an incoming text woke him from an uncomfortable position.
"C U soon...L"
Lena. Sometimes he still expected to hate himself for being with Lena. Every time he touched her, he expected to see visions of his mother hovering over his head, shrieking at him about being just like his father. Instead, he felt nothing. He had no real feelings for Lena, no responsibilities, nothing. She was a nice person who didn't have to understand him, didn't have to care, she just had to be there. Not judging him. Not making him feel like a disappointment.
He wiped his tired eyes and fished out Lena's home address from some scrap of paper put in his pocket. He was happy he at least had somewhere to go.
At least until he made her hate him, too.