[Fanfic] It was a Hard Enough Life
Title: It Was a Hard Enough Life
Genre: angst/general/slashish-friendship
Pairing(s): Travis/Wes
Rating/Warnings: T mentions of child abuse
Summary: A run in with his father has Wes spinning out of control as the childhood he worked so hard to bury was starting to surface again. Based on this prompt
AN: New fandom! Common Law people.
Mitchell was a common last name, and Robert was a common first name. That’s what Wes kept telling himself the whole ride to the house their murder victim, William Mitchell, had shared with his brother, Robert Mitchell. There were lots of people with that name in LA, there had to be. So if there were so many in LA it was highly unlikely this Robert Mitchell was his father. There was a low probability that Wes couldn’t bring himself to accept.
He glanced at Travis for a brief moment. He was thumping his thumb to the beat of the song on the radio. Wes hadn’t put up too much of a fight about the radio, and Travis seemed to have linked it to their counseling. He was so blissfully unaware of the panic and fear that was currently trying to drown Wes. All those years of burying his horrible childhood in good grades and outstanding class numbers and degrees were about to fly out the window if it was the same Robert Mitchell that was half of Wes. Wes can’t help but think about how things will go down if it really was his father. The whole station would know, and he already gets enough bad looks as it is.
“Hey, are you even listening to me, Wes?” Travis said, suddenly knocking Wes form his panic briefly. It returned when Wes noticed how close they were to their destination. Wes nodded, he was listening now. “What did I just say then?”
“You think the brother killed him.” Wes said taking a blind swing. But knowing Travis it had probably been said at some point of the car ride.
He heard Wes turn to him in his seat and look at him. Wes spared him a brief look. Travis made a sound and crossed his arms. Wes bit back the biggest “really?” in his mind and smugly smiled. Sometimes he was glad he knew Travis so well. His smugness is short lived however, as they pulled up to the address of William and Robert Mitchell.
Wes stopped the car and parked across the street, and got out slowly. He was happy it was a reasonable neighborhood, his car somewhat blended in. They made their way across the street and up to the front door of the small house. Wes feels the possibility choking him and he almost doesn’t feel like he can bring himself to talk at all. He hopes Travis will pick up on at least that and do the talking for him till Wes could prove the man wasn’t his father.
He pounded on the door, before sliding his hands into his pockets and Travis looked at him. Good, his odd quietness was getting noticed. Travis looked at him with question about to ask something before the door opened and a scratchy and annoyed “Can I help you?” greeted them.
“Robert Mitchell,” Travis asked turning to the man, and Wes so glad he did. Wes’ blood ran cold and his face paled, because there in front of him was his father, with a thinner and grayer head of blonde hair than the last time Wes saw him.
“Yes, what’s it too you?” Robert growled.
“I’m Detective Travis Marks, and this is my partner Detective Wes Mitchell,” Travis said gesturing towards Wes. Robert turned to him, but Travis didn’t take too much note of the look of his face seeing as how he kept talking.
Wes didn’t hear the rest of what he said, he was too busy wiggling under his father’s gaze. Robert Mitchell was staring at him with hatred Wes had grown up to be familiar with. It screamed “life-ruined” and “accident.” Wes swallowed as Travis seemed to slowly stop talking his eyes flickering between Wes and Robert.
“Detective,” Robert snorted loudly, “I thought you were a lawyer.”
“I was.” Wes said more cooly than he thought he would if this event were to happen. Wes bit back the rest of what he was going to say. Travis seemed even more confused, his eyes still flickering between the two. At least he sense the hostility between the two.
Robert grabbed his jacket suddenly and before Travis even had the instinct to step in, ground out, “You ungrateful mistake of a child.” Wes snapped and so did Robert, leaving poor Travis to break them up.
---- ---- ---
“Wesly! Robert! Stop it this instant both of you!” His mother yelled in tears as the glass from the TV stand shattered. She screamed in horror, covering her mouth as it scattered everywhere, showing Wes.
With a groan, Wes gave a hard shove to his father’s torso, before plowing him in the side of the face. His father did something similar in return, sending Wes to the ground. His mother rushed to his aid, to see if he was well enough for them not to report this. His father tossed her away, leaving only a shriek in her place. That got Wes going again. It was bad enough the man came drunk to their condo and demanded money, but it only made things worse that he was throwing his ex-wife around.
He got to his feet and tackled his father down to the glass on the floor. His father pushed at his shoulders, and Wes landed a few good blows to his father’s being before he was launched back into a wall. The pictures on the wall rattled. They were all pictures from before he was born, or painting, not a single one of their family. Pictures with mistakes in them always ended up in the trash. The collection of his school pictures falls to the ground beside him. Wes groaned, dizzy from the sudden contact, he can’t bring himself to stand.
“Leave this instant, Robert!” He heard his mother yelling. “Or God help me I will call the cops! Now leave!” Wes could hear her panting with rage.
“You’d defend the thing that ruined your very life, Cindy!” His father hissed drunkly.
“He’s my son!” His mother yelled, and Wes sucked in a breath. It was the first time in all of his sixteen years of existence that she called him her son. “Now go!”
With some grumbles, Wes’ father left with a loud slam of the door. His mother came to his aid, hushing the tears Wes didn’t know he had been spilling. It had been the first time his father hit him.
---- ---- ---
Wes set the incident report down, and burying his face in his hands. He blew it completely. He hadn’t fought back like a normal cop would to assault. A normal cop would need someone else to break it up and pull him away. Still he was glad he hadn’t reached for his gun the moment he could, because he would have shot his father out of the fear he still harbored for the man.
The sound of a ceramic mug being placed on the table alerted him to someone else’s presents in the room. He hoped it was the chief, there to tell him the whole thing was just going to be forgotten and he could shred his report. The mug being pushed across the table like it was a peace offering told him it was Travis. With a sigh, Wes peeked out from his hands.
“Robert Mitchell’s going to stay the night in jail for assault, and he’s agreed to not press charges, for your…detailed defense.” Travis said with a small smile.
It wasn’t too much of a relief or a satisfaction. “Figures.” Wes said with another sigh and some blinking. He rubbed his hands on his pants. Wes couldn’t bring himself to say anything else, his fighting back was starting to raise some questions.
“I though you said your dad was dead.” Travis said with his hands in his pockets. He’s looking around the room, somewhat avoiding looking at Wes.
There was no hiding it anymore, through the banter that had filled the fight it was clear they were father and son. “He is…” Wes said slowly, pausing for a moment, he couldn’t bring himself to say it. “He is in my head.” Wes looked at the table.
When he had first learned Travis had been in foster care all his youth, Wes was relieved. People wouldn’t question his oddness. That and he would have someone who could relate to him. It wasn’t until he had been to meet Maggie, and heard the stories about the loving childhood Travis had aside from one father, that he realized even Travis had had a better life. Travis had had birthdays, family vacations, holiday barbeques; Wes hadn’t had any of that. He was jealous of him, so jealous. However, Wes had kept his horrible childhood hidden. The mentally abusive sixteen years stored away, and focused on the good.
“You want to talk about it?” Travis asked so gingerly it was almost sickening. It was like he suddenly become some child’s therapist.
Wes looked at him and bit his lip behind his hand. “No.” He said curtly before rising from his seat and collected his report. Without another word, he left Travis alone. Alex didn’t even know; why should Travis?
---- ---- ---
“You use to dance like that mommy?” Wes asked with a grin. He had loved the twirling dancers on the screen since he was little and he would watch the shows with his mother.
“Oh, I was the best.” She said with a wonder. She rose from the couch and swayed with some imaginary person in her arms. She was beautiful and Wes clapped with all the joy a nine year old could muster. “I had scouts giving me cards every day, and men wanting to whisk me away. It was wonderful.” She smiled closing her eyes and smiling at the memory. She suddenly frowned, “but then I got pregnant and had you,” she glared at him slightly.
Wes swallowed, he wiggled under her gaze.
“I can’t help but wonder what my life would have been life if you never happened.” She said with a sigh sinking back down to her seat.
Wes turned his attention back to the television, sinking into the couch pillows more. He wanted to disappear, to not exist. He wanted his mother to be a pretty dancer like the people on the screen. He can’t help but truly feel like he ruined his mother’s life.
---- ---- ---
“Hey, I read you got into a fight with a victim’s brother, Wes.” A woman from their couples’ counseling group, Lucy was her name if Wes remembered correctly, said. A few others perked up at the statement and Wes glared at her slightly.
Wes’ first instinct was to look at Travis who held his hands up in surrender. However it had been in the newspaper. It was a small story on the side. It talked about some unnecessary roughness on Wes’ part, but it at least said that his father had attacked first in a way that required the roughness. It hadn’t been too big luckily but Wes doesn’t feel like talking around it.
“If you read the paper, you would know it was assault, he grabbed me first.” Wes said in sharp defense. He hoped that would be the end of the conversation but Dr. Ryan perked up.
“There’s no need to be so defensive, Wes, no one’s judging.” She smiled out. Wes could disagree. “It to be honest, I was actually happy you were slightly out of control.” She made it sound worse than it was, but it had been up to Travis to step up and take some responsibility.
Quietness settled on the group and it seemed slightly awkward.
“You know, you two sort of looked related.” Juilie said after a while.
That did Wes in. He stormed out of the session completely ignoring Dr. Ryan’s calls and Travis attempting to go after him. Wes wasn’t the one people should be pinning family problems too. Wes doesn’t want there to be a childhood reason why he was the way he was.
---- ---- ---
Wes’ first memory was of his parents fighting in the kitchen. His mother was screaming, her face red, his father’s face was the same. He didn’t know what they were yelling at each other for, but they were just yelling. His mother started crying at some point, still arguing loudly though.
Wes had hidden behind a chair with his stuffed rabbit in his arms. His father left with a huff, he didn’t push his mother out of the way just slide past her. He muttered something when he noticed Wes hiding, looking at him with big blue eyes. His father was gone in a flash after that. He watched his mother sink to the floor sobbing.
He went to comfort her. Placing a hand on her arm and admitting a soft “mommy?” The reaction he got, scared him back. Causing him to clutch his rabbit more.
“Don’t touch me! Don’t call me ‘mommy’! You shouldn’t even exist!” She yelled at him before shoving him slightly so he fell back on his bottom. She hurried way.
Wes did the only his three year old mind could think to do. He cried, and no one came to give him comfort.
---- ---- ---
Dr. Ryan was calling him for the fourth time that day, but Wes refuses to answer. He wanted to drop off the grid and not exist anymore. He lied on his hotel bed staring up at the ceiling, remembering the time when he had only existed in school. He remembered when he didn’t even know his date of birth, when it was so much easier for him to imagine he didn’t exist.
His phone rang again, and he looked at it. This time it was Travis, it was the tenth time the man had called. Wes through his phone across the hotel room, cringing as it clattered against the wall. It was a nice phone and it didn’t deserve him flinging it around because he didn’t want to talk to people. However, Wes didn’t get up to retrieve it. He let it continue ringing and make the tone that a message had been left.
He smiled at the quietness that filled the room. It calmed him almost instantly. The only sound coming to his ears were his breaths, calm, easy breaths that told him he was alive. His mind flashing back to when he was twelve and a similar event had calmed him. He remembered his mind remembering his aunt kept a gun locked in a nightstand by her bed. Wes shutter, his hands wondering to his empty holster, and he closed his eyes. It was so easy, just a pull of the trigger and there would be no Wes Mitchell any more. No more twelve year old Wes ruining his mother’s dream.
Wes shot up from the bed and threw his hostler out the door way of the bed room in the suit he had. He let out a shuttering breath, shaking at the fact that he thought about suicide like when he was twelve. He was glad he had shoved his gun into the glove department of his car. He swallowed, he hadn’t thought about his childhood this much. Its eating away at him, and he can only think about blaming his father.
A loud banging on his door startled Wes. He wondered who would be complaining about him now, there always seemed to be someone. Grudgingly he got up. He willed himself to stop shaking and stop looking like he had seen a ghost, and act like a normal human being would. The banging was persistent, and Wes rolled his eyes, honestly he wanted to know what it was this time.
“What do you wa-Travis?” Wes’ snap slowly turned to question, as he saw his partner glaring at him hand raised from his knocking.
“I want you to answer you phone, is that too much to ask?” Travis said just coming right into Wes room, he literally shoved Wes out of the way to come in.
“Travis, would you like to come in?” Wes whispered sarcastically to himself, blowing some air as he closed the door. “Why are you here, Travis?”
“You wouldn’t pick up your phone, man.” Travis said with a bit of a grin.
“I didn’t feel like talking to anyone.” Wes said honestly, hoping that it will be enough to make Travis go away. Of course, Wes knew telling Travis to stop doing anything, only wanted to make him do it more.
“Why?”
Because Wes in possibly on the verge of a mental breakdown. Because he was tittering on the line of suicidal. Because he vowed to bury his past and not look back at it and that promise was falling apart. Because his father got to him. Because he existed.
“Dude, you’re shaking like a leaf.” Travis said racing towards him. Wes looked down at himself to see he was shaking, his breaths weren’t even normal. “Sit down, or something, you’re scaring me, man. Hold on, let me get you something to drink.” Travis shoved him into a chair and hurried to the small fridge and fetched Wes a water bottle.
Wes pulled his legs up to his chest and willed himself to stop shaking. To stop being so weak and lost in front of Travis. He can’t, however. Travis knew Robert Mitchell was his father, and the two gotten into a fight that was not the usual sort of one father and son going into. Travis knew Wes had daddy-issues, does he need to know Wes was suicidal, or that for sixteen years of his life he accepted that he was a mistake, or that it took his mother till he was sixteen to call him her son and attempt to make a family. Did Travis really need to know about the unstable ground Wes stood on?
Yes, as his partner, Travis needed to know. He needed to know if Wes was having the possibility of harming himself. He did need to know Wes’ childhood was not so happy as he said it was.
“You know, I’ve seen and heard just about every child abuse done kids in the foster system.” Travis said with a smile as he handed Wes the water bottle. “I’m sure I’ve heard worse than your father fighting with you.”
Wes stared at the water bottle. “If only it was that simple.” Wes said looking up at his partner. He trusted Travis with his life, why couldn’t he trust him with his path. “You might want to sit down.”
Travis did so with a smile Wes put his legs down. He needed this, its therapy.
Swallowing he started from the beginning. From the fact that his mother was going to be a professional dancer and his father was going to be a Wall Street master mind, and how he ruined it all. He told him about how his parents argued and made him cry but they didn’t care. How he didn’t know how to read in kindergarten like some of the other kids, and his struggles through grade school. He told Travis about the lies he said on career day, and the fact that he used to think his birthday was in July when it really was in April.
He talked about how his mother and him ran away from his father in the middle of the night and lived with his aunt for a year, and how he thought of suicide at age twelve. How he was constantly reminded of the mistake he was and life would be so much better for his parents if he didn’t exist. How there were no family events, no pictures. He talked about how the first time he and his father fought he was sixteen and it was the same day his mother started to fix things. How she confessed about why she didn’t put him in up for adoption, how she hadn’t had the heart to give him away after seeing him. How his mother had wanted to make his life anything but a mistake she and his father made. How he nearly flunked out of Law School, and cried when his mother was the only encouragement he had.
Wes confessed how jealous he had been on Travis’ childhood, and the fact that his teasing about no one wanting Travis was a defense for no one wanting him. Wes was in tears at the end and Travis had tears in his blue eyes but he wasn’t crying.
“You need to say this to the group.” Travis said as Wes calmed down into sniffles. “Lay it out. It’ll explain some things.” Wes looked at Travis; the man had always been so up front with his Foster Care System childhood. It’s not that easy for Wes. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to, just you know…put it out there, when you’re ready.”
“I didn’t even tell Alex this.” Wes admitted suddenly, and his eyes widen, he suddenly made this a very important thing.
To his joy, Travis doesn’t bask in the fact that Wes gave him the secret of his childhood. He just ushered him off to bed, commenting about how he would sleep on the couch. Wes doesn’t say it, but he was thankful. He smiled to himself knowing Travis was just on the other side of the wall. Maybe existing wasn’t such a bad thing.
AN: I'm proud of this, well I'm not proud of the ending but it was the best I could do so this story didn't go on until the end of time. Any way, I know the prompt sort of asked for both his parents to be retentive of him, but I picture his mom patching things up with him. I think she and Wes get along well enough to play off a good childhood, and she supports him in everything he does. I kinda of picture Wes being a mommy's boy was well, not overly so, but he cares for her. His mother and him left his father when he was twelve because he started psychologically abusing her because she hadn't given Wes away as a baby. After that his father fluttered in and out of his life, only really asking for money and being drunk.
Also I picture Wes being more psychologically abused, his father not really hitting him till Wes was older, his parents constantly slammed him with the fact that his existence ruined their dreams and lives, so Wes has this idea he ruins lives in the back of his head and hence the reason he's not so good with people. Also his need for control could be explained through his lack of anything that really marked him as a person, so he labels just about everything he feels the need to.
It's a rather depressing way to introduce my writing to a fandom, but whatever.
Genre: angst/general/slashish-friendship
Pairing(s): Travis/Wes
Rating/Warnings: T mentions of child abuse
Summary: A run in with his father has Wes spinning out of control as the childhood he worked so hard to bury was starting to surface again. Based on this prompt
AN: New fandom! Common Law people.
Mitchell was a common last name, and Robert was a common first name. That’s what Wes kept telling himself the whole ride to the house their murder victim, William Mitchell, had shared with his brother, Robert Mitchell. There were lots of people with that name in LA, there had to be. So if there were so many in LA it was highly unlikely this Robert Mitchell was his father. There was a low probability that Wes couldn’t bring himself to accept.
He glanced at Travis for a brief moment. He was thumping his thumb to the beat of the song on the radio. Wes hadn’t put up too much of a fight about the radio, and Travis seemed to have linked it to their counseling. He was so blissfully unaware of the panic and fear that was currently trying to drown Wes. All those years of burying his horrible childhood in good grades and outstanding class numbers and degrees were about to fly out the window if it was the same Robert Mitchell that was half of Wes. Wes can’t help but think about how things will go down if it really was his father. The whole station would know, and he already gets enough bad looks as it is.
“Hey, are you even listening to me, Wes?” Travis said, suddenly knocking Wes form his panic briefly. It returned when Wes noticed how close they were to their destination. Wes nodded, he was listening now. “What did I just say then?”
“You think the brother killed him.” Wes said taking a blind swing. But knowing Travis it had probably been said at some point of the car ride.
He heard Wes turn to him in his seat and look at him. Wes spared him a brief look. Travis made a sound and crossed his arms. Wes bit back the biggest “really?” in his mind and smugly smiled. Sometimes he was glad he knew Travis so well. His smugness is short lived however, as they pulled up to the address of William and Robert Mitchell.
Wes stopped the car and parked across the street, and got out slowly. He was happy it was a reasonable neighborhood, his car somewhat blended in. They made their way across the street and up to the front door of the small house. Wes feels the possibility choking him and he almost doesn’t feel like he can bring himself to talk at all. He hopes Travis will pick up on at least that and do the talking for him till Wes could prove the man wasn’t his father.
He pounded on the door, before sliding his hands into his pockets and Travis looked at him. Good, his odd quietness was getting noticed. Travis looked at him with question about to ask something before the door opened and a scratchy and annoyed “Can I help you?” greeted them.
“Robert Mitchell,” Travis asked turning to the man, and Wes so glad he did. Wes’ blood ran cold and his face paled, because there in front of him was his father, with a thinner and grayer head of blonde hair than the last time Wes saw him.
“Yes, what’s it too you?” Robert growled.
“I’m Detective Travis Marks, and this is my partner Detective Wes Mitchell,” Travis said gesturing towards Wes. Robert turned to him, but Travis didn’t take too much note of the look of his face seeing as how he kept talking.
Wes didn’t hear the rest of what he said, he was too busy wiggling under his father’s gaze. Robert Mitchell was staring at him with hatred Wes had grown up to be familiar with. It screamed “life-ruined” and “accident.” Wes swallowed as Travis seemed to slowly stop talking his eyes flickering between Wes and Robert.
“Detective,” Robert snorted loudly, “I thought you were a lawyer.”
“I was.” Wes said more cooly than he thought he would if this event were to happen. Wes bit back the rest of what he was going to say. Travis seemed even more confused, his eyes still flickering between the two. At least he sense the hostility between the two.
Robert grabbed his jacket suddenly and before Travis even had the instinct to step in, ground out, “You ungrateful mistake of a child.” Wes snapped and so did Robert, leaving poor Travis to break them up.
---- ---- ---
“Wesly! Robert! Stop it this instant both of you!” His mother yelled in tears as the glass from the TV stand shattered. She screamed in horror, covering her mouth as it scattered everywhere, showing Wes.
With a groan, Wes gave a hard shove to his father’s torso, before plowing him in the side of the face. His father did something similar in return, sending Wes to the ground. His mother rushed to his aid, to see if he was well enough for them not to report this. His father tossed her away, leaving only a shriek in her place. That got Wes going again. It was bad enough the man came drunk to their condo and demanded money, but it only made things worse that he was throwing his ex-wife around.
He got to his feet and tackled his father down to the glass on the floor. His father pushed at his shoulders, and Wes landed a few good blows to his father’s being before he was launched back into a wall. The pictures on the wall rattled. They were all pictures from before he was born, or painting, not a single one of their family. Pictures with mistakes in them always ended up in the trash. The collection of his school pictures falls to the ground beside him. Wes groaned, dizzy from the sudden contact, he can’t bring himself to stand.
“Leave this instant, Robert!” He heard his mother yelling. “Or God help me I will call the cops! Now leave!” Wes could hear her panting with rage.
“You’d defend the thing that ruined your very life, Cindy!” His father hissed drunkly.
“He’s my son!” His mother yelled, and Wes sucked in a breath. It was the first time in all of his sixteen years of existence that she called him her son. “Now go!”
With some grumbles, Wes’ father left with a loud slam of the door. His mother came to his aid, hushing the tears Wes didn’t know he had been spilling. It had been the first time his father hit him.
---- ---- ---
Wes set the incident report down, and burying his face in his hands. He blew it completely. He hadn’t fought back like a normal cop would to assault. A normal cop would need someone else to break it up and pull him away. Still he was glad he hadn’t reached for his gun the moment he could, because he would have shot his father out of the fear he still harbored for the man.
The sound of a ceramic mug being placed on the table alerted him to someone else’s presents in the room. He hoped it was the chief, there to tell him the whole thing was just going to be forgotten and he could shred his report. The mug being pushed across the table like it was a peace offering told him it was Travis. With a sigh, Wes peeked out from his hands.
“Robert Mitchell’s going to stay the night in jail for assault, and he’s agreed to not press charges, for your…detailed defense.” Travis said with a small smile.
It wasn’t too much of a relief or a satisfaction. “Figures.” Wes said with another sigh and some blinking. He rubbed his hands on his pants. Wes couldn’t bring himself to say anything else, his fighting back was starting to raise some questions.
“I though you said your dad was dead.” Travis said with his hands in his pockets. He’s looking around the room, somewhat avoiding looking at Wes.
There was no hiding it anymore, through the banter that had filled the fight it was clear they were father and son. “He is…” Wes said slowly, pausing for a moment, he couldn’t bring himself to say it. “He is in my head.” Wes looked at the table.
When he had first learned Travis had been in foster care all his youth, Wes was relieved. People wouldn’t question his oddness. That and he would have someone who could relate to him. It wasn’t until he had been to meet Maggie, and heard the stories about the loving childhood Travis had aside from one father, that he realized even Travis had had a better life. Travis had had birthdays, family vacations, holiday barbeques; Wes hadn’t had any of that. He was jealous of him, so jealous. However, Wes had kept his horrible childhood hidden. The mentally abusive sixteen years stored away, and focused on the good.
“You want to talk about it?” Travis asked so gingerly it was almost sickening. It was like he suddenly become some child’s therapist.
Wes looked at him and bit his lip behind his hand. “No.” He said curtly before rising from his seat and collected his report. Without another word, he left Travis alone. Alex didn’t even know; why should Travis?
---- ---- ---
“You use to dance like that mommy?” Wes asked with a grin. He had loved the twirling dancers on the screen since he was little and he would watch the shows with his mother.
“Oh, I was the best.” She said with a wonder. She rose from the couch and swayed with some imaginary person in her arms. She was beautiful and Wes clapped with all the joy a nine year old could muster. “I had scouts giving me cards every day, and men wanting to whisk me away. It was wonderful.” She smiled closing her eyes and smiling at the memory. She suddenly frowned, “but then I got pregnant and had you,” she glared at him slightly.
Wes swallowed, he wiggled under her gaze.
“I can’t help but wonder what my life would have been life if you never happened.” She said with a sigh sinking back down to her seat.
Wes turned his attention back to the television, sinking into the couch pillows more. He wanted to disappear, to not exist. He wanted his mother to be a pretty dancer like the people on the screen. He can’t help but truly feel like he ruined his mother’s life.
---- ---- ---
“Hey, I read you got into a fight with a victim’s brother, Wes.” A woman from their couples’ counseling group, Lucy was her name if Wes remembered correctly, said. A few others perked up at the statement and Wes glared at her slightly.
Wes’ first instinct was to look at Travis who held his hands up in surrender. However it had been in the newspaper. It was a small story on the side. It talked about some unnecessary roughness on Wes’ part, but it at least said that his father had attacked first in a way that required the roughness. It hadn’t been too big luckily but Wes doesn’t feel like talking around it.
“If you read the paper, you would know it was assault, he grabbed me first.” Wes said in sharp defense. He hoped that would be the end of the conversation but Dr. Ryan perked up.
“There’s no need to be so defensive, Wes, no one’s judging.” She smiled out. Wes could disagree. “It to be honest, I was actually happy you were slightly out of control.” She made it sound worse than it was, but it had been up to Travis to step up and take some responsibility.
Quietness settled on the group and it seemed slightly awkward.
“You know, you two sort of looked related.” Juilie said after a while.
That did Wes in. He stormed out of the session completely ignoring Dr. Ryan’s calls and Travis attempting to go after him. Wes wasn’t the one people should be pinning family problems too. Wes doesn’t want there to be a childhood reason why he was the way he was.
---- ---- ---
Wes’ first memory was of his parents fighting in the kitchen. His mother was screaming, her face red, his father’s face was the same. He didn’t know what they were yelling at each other for, but they were just yelling. His mother started crying at some point, still arguing loudly though.
Wes had hidden behind a chair with his stuffed rabbit in his arms. His father left with a huff, he didn’t push his mother out of the way just slide past her. He muttered something when he noticed Wes hiding, looking at him with big blue eyes. His father was gone in a flash after that. He watched his mother sink to the floor sobbing.
He went to comfort her. Placing a hand on her arm and admitting a soft “mommy?” The reaction he got, scared him back. Causing him to clutch his rabbit more.
“Don’t touch me! Don’t call me ‘mommy’! You shouldn’t even exist!” She yelled at him before shoving him slightly so he fell back on his bottom. She hurried way.
Wes did the only his three year old mind could think to do. He cried, and no one came to give him comfort.
---- ---- ---
Dr. Ryan was calling him for the fourth time that day, but Wes refuses to answer. He wanted to drop off the grid and not exist anymore. He lied on his hotel bed staring up at the ceiling, remembering the time when he had only existed in school. He remembered when he didn’t even know his date of birth, when it was so much easier for him to imagine he didn’t exist.
His phone rang again, and he looked at it. This time it was Travis, it was the tenth time the man had called. Wes through his phone across the hotel room, cringing as it clattered against the wall. It was a nice phone and it didn’t deserve him flinging it around because he didn’t want to talk to people. However, Wes didn’t get up to retrieve it. He let it continue ringing and make the tone that a message had been left.
He smiled at the quietness that filled the room. It calmed him almost instantly. The only sound coming to his ears were his breaths, calm, easy breaths that told him he was alive. His mind flashing back to when he was twelve and a similar event had calmed him. He remembered his mind remembering his aunt kept a gun locked in a nightstand by her bed. Wes shutter, his hands wondering to his empty holster, and he closed his eyes. It was so easy, just a pull of the trigger and there would be no Wes Mitchell any more. No more twelve year old Wes ruining his mother’s dream.
Wes shot up from the bed and threw his hostler out the door way of the bed room in the suit he had. He let out a shuttering breath, shaking at the fact that he thought about suicide like when he was twelve. He was glad he had shoved his gun into the glove department of his car. He swallowed, he hadn’t thought about his childhood this much. Its eating away at him, and he can only think about blaming his father.
A loud banging on his door startled Wes. He wondered who would be complaining about him now, there always seemed to be someone. Grudgingly he got up. He willed himself to stop shaking and stop looking like he had seen a ghost, and act like a normal human being would. The banging was persistent, and Wes rolled his eyes, honestly he wanted to know what it was this time.
“What do you wa-Travis?” Wes’ snap slowly turned to question, as he saw his partner glaring at him hand raised from his knocking.
“I want you to answer you phone, is that too much to ask?” Travis said just coming right into Wes room, he literally shoved Wes out of the way to come in.
“Travis, would you like to come in?” Wes whispered sarcastically to himself, blowing some air as he closed the door. “Why are you here, Travis?”
“You wouldn’t pick up your phone, man.” Travis said with a bit of a grin.
“I didn’t feel like talking to anyone.” Wes said honestly, hoping that it will be enough to make Travis go away. Of course, Wes knew telling Travis to stop doing anything, only wanted to make him do it more.
“Why?”
Because Wes in possibly on the verge of a mental breakdown. Because he was tittering on the line of suicidal. Because he vowed to bury his past and not look back at it and that promise was falling apart. Because his father got to him. Because he existed.
“Dude, you’re shaking like a leaf.” Travis said racing towards him. Wes looked down at himself to see he was shaking, his breaths weren’t even normal. “Sit down, or something, you’re scaring me, man. Hold on, let me get you something to drink.” Travis shoved him into a chair and hurried to the small fridge and fetched Wes a water bottle.
Wes pulled his legs up to his chest and willed himself to stop shaking. To stop being so weak and lost in front of Travis. He can’t, however. Travis knew Robert Mitchell was his father, and the two gotten into a fight that was not the usual sort of one father and son going into. Travis knew Wes had daddy-issues, does he need to know Wes was suicidal, or that for sixteen years of his life he accepted that he was a mistake, or that it took his mother till he was sixteen to call him her son and attempt to make a family. Did Travis really need to know about the unstable ground Wes stood on?
Yes, as his partner, Travis needed to know. He needed to know if Wes was having the possibility of harming himself. He did need to know Wes’ childhood was not so happy as he said it was.
“You know, I’ve seen and heard just about every child abuse done kids in the foster system.” Travis said with a smile as he handed Wes the water bottle. “I’m sure I’ve heard worse than your father fighting with you.”
Wes stared at the water bottle. “If only it was that simple.” Wes said looking up at his partner. He trusted Travis with his life, why couldn’t he trust him with his path. “You might want to sit down.”
Travis did so with a smile Wes put his legs down. He needed this, its therapy.
Swallowing he started from the beginning. From the fact that his mother was going to be a professional dancer and his father was going to be a Wall Street master mind, and how he ruined it all. He told him about how his parents argued and made him cry but they didn’t care. How he didn’t know how to read in kindergarten like some of the other kids, and his struggles through grade school. He told Travis about the lies he said on career day, and the fact that he used to think his birthday was in July when it really was in April.
He talked about how his mother and him ran away from his father in the middle of the night and lived with his aunt for a year, and how he thought of suicide at age twelve. How he was constantly reminded of the mistake he was and life would be so much better for his parents if he didn’t exist. How there were no family events, no pictures. He talked about how the first time he and his father fought he was sixteen and it was the same day his mother started to fix things. How she confessed about why she didn’t put him in up for adoption, how she hadn’t had the heart to give him away after seeing him. How his mother had wanted to make his life anything but a mistake she and his father made. How he nearly flunked out of Law School, and cried when his mother was the only encouragement he had.
Wes confessed how jealous he had been on Travis’ childhood, and the fact that his teasing about no one wanting Travis was a defense for no one wanting him. Wes was in tears at the end and Travis had tears in his blue eyes but he wasn’t crying.
“You need to say this to the group.” Travis said as Wes calmed down into sniffles. “Lay it out. It’ll explain some things.” Wes looked at Travis; the man had always been so up front with his Foster Care System childhood. It’s not that easy for Wes. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to, just you know…put it out there, when you’re ready.”
“I didn’t even tell Alex this.” Wes admitted suddenly, and his eyes widen, he suddenly made this a very important thing.
To his joy, Travis doesn’t bask in the fact that Wes gave him the secret of his childhood. He just ushered him off to bed, commenting about how he would sleep on the couch. Wes doesn’t say it, but he was thankful. He smiled to himself knowing Travis was just on the other side of the wall. Maybe existing wasn’t such a bad thing.
AN: I'm proud of this, well I'm not proud of the ending but it was the best I could do so this story didn't go on until the end of time. Any way, I know the prompt sort of asked for both his parents to be retentive of him, but I picture his mom patching things up with him. I think she and Wes get along well enough to play off a good childhood, and she supports him in everything he does. I kinda of picture Wes being a mommy's boy was well, not overly so, but he cares for her. His mother and him left his father when he was twelve because he started psychologically abusing her because she hadn't given Wes away as a baby. After that his father fluttered in and out of his life, only really asking for money and being drunk.
Also I picture Wes being more psychologically abused, his father not really hitting him till Wes was older, his parents constantly slammed him with the fact that his existence ruined their dreams and lives, so Wes has this idea he ruins lives in the back of his head and hence the reason he's not so good with people. Also his need for control could be explained through his lack of anything that really marked him as a person, so he labels just about everything he feels the need to.
It's a rather depressing way to introduce my writing to a fandom, but whatever.