The little AU: Summer Winds: Courage
The little AU: Summer Winds: Courage
slashfairy
~~
He'd forgotten how angry he gets at the old man.
Furious. Insensate.
No wonder he'd been relieved to move back to America, out to university, away to Denmark, Norway, Montana, California.
He knows it's important- he can feel it in his bones- to come to some less adversarial relationship with the old man, but right now he's damned if he knows how that will come to be.
Coming back from fishing in the near-dark. Not as well-rested as he's been pretending. Not as physically present to himself as he used to be. Fell over a root, cut his foot. Poked himself with the pole, then stumbled again and nearly smashed the creel, then turned around too quickly and got a branch in the shoulder for his trouble.
Now every thing hurts, everything, and he's sitting in the woods crying, holding himself hands-on-arms so tightly that there'll be bruises the next day the size of fingerprints.
This has to stop, he'd said to Orli the day before over the phone. I can't keep doing this.
No, you can't, Orli'd said, not if you want to spend your energy on things that matter to you. Unless you choose to keep doing this. You don't have to stop. You can keep blaming him. He likes the attention, and you like thinking you know where you stand with him.
That's what comes to mind now, while he's sitting here crying the way he did when he was small, before he'd given up letting it show, before he'd turned it all into something he could use in acting, or could put into a poem, or lay out on paper or canvas or guitar string.
I can't keep doing this. This has to stop.
He wipes his face. Stands, gathers up the fishing stuff, laughs at himself for taking the boy's way through the woods to the lakeside instead of driving down like a "man his age". Not because it's wrong to take the boy's path, but because he'd not remembered how close to the surface that brings the boy. Good thing it's just me here, he thinks, picking his dusk-lit way a bit more carefully til he comes to the truck. He puts his equipment in the back and drives back to the house to make dinner for the two of them.
After dinner he goes to his own place. Relieved he made the effort, frustrated because once again they'd come to shouting. He'd hit the table once hard with his fist, making the dog jump and himself wince because it hurt more than he's used to. More than he's noticed in the past. I can't keep doing this, he says out loud, and the old man looks at him like he's never seen him before.
In the shower that look comes back to his thoughts. He's not sure he's ever seen that look on the old man's face- he's so used to the ready-made judgment he expects to see there, he's almost quit expecting something else. He wonders what else he's missed, but doesn't have the energy to pursue that actively- it'll have to mull for a while yet.
Drying off he notices more bruises, another cut. Torn nail. I can't keep doing this, he thinks, though he's always been careless in some way, asking more of his body than most, taking pride in what it endures for him even when it's a fool's trial he's put it through. But to take his frustration with the old man out on his own flesh-even through impatience- this can't go on.
He knows he can't rush it. He knows it'll need more attention- no, a different kind of attention- than he's given it. He begins to understand all over again that all the change has to happen on his side of the equation, that he has to trust that his change will allow for the old man to change, if he's going to. If he can.
But there's no use literally beating himself up over what's past. He'll never be the son who pleases the old man, never be the one the old man understands, and the old man will never be the parent he is comfortable around, the one he respects, wants to be like.
It's take courage to admit how much of the old man is in him. It'll take courage to admit how much of him the old man doesn't recognize. But if there's going to be change, courage- heart -is what it'll take. And that, he's learning, he has in more abundance than he'd ever dreamed.
When he calls Karl later on before bed, all Karl has to say is, Did it work? Beating yourself up? Did that change anything? to make him laugh.
No, not real well, he says.
Got an alternative? Karl asks.
Might have at that, Bones, he answers, and their conversation makes its way into what they give each other so well- space to explore and support to keep going, even in the dark places where it's hard to accept what's found. Live long and prosper Karl says to him as they hang up, and as he closes the phone and puts it down, he answers, smiling, I intend to.
slashfairy
~~
He'd forgotten how angry he gets at the old man.
Furious. Insensate.
No wonder he'd been relieved to move back to America, out to university, away to Denmark, Norway, Montana, California.
He knows it's important- he can feel it in his bones- to come to some less adversarial relationship with the old man, but right now he's damned if he knows how that will come to be.
Coming back from fishing in the near-dark. Not as well-rested as he's been pretending. Not as physically present to himself as he used to be. Fell over a root, cut his foot. Poked himself with the pole, then stumbled again and nearly smashed the creel, then turned around too quickly and got a branch in the shoulder for his trouble.
Now every thing hurts, everything, and he's sitting in the woods crying, holding himself hands-on-arms so tightly that there'll be bruises the next day the size of fingerprints.
This has to stop, he'd said to Orli the day before over the phone. I can't keep doing this.
No, you can't, Orli'd said, not if you want to spend your energy on things that matter to you. Unless you choose to keep doing this. You don't have to stop. You can keep blaming him. He likes the attention, and you like thinking you know where you stand with him.
That's what comes to mind now, while he's sitting here crying the way he did when he was small, before he'd given up letting it show, before he'd turned it all into something he could use in acting, or could put into a poem, or lay out on paper or canvas or guitar string.
I can't keep doing this. This has to stop.
He wipes his face. Stands, gathers up the fishing stuff, laughs at himself for taking the boy's way through the woods to the lakeside instead of driving down like a "man his age". Not because it's wrong to take the boy's path, but because he'd not remembered how close to the surface that brings the boy. Good thing it's just me here, he thinks, picking his dusk-lit way a bit more carefully til he comes to the truck. He puts his equipment in the back and drives back to the house to make dinner for the two of them.
After dinner he goes to his own place. Relieved he made the effort, frustrated because once again they'd come to shouting. He'd hit the table once hard with his fist, making the dog jump and himself wince because it hurt more than he's used to. More than he's noticed in the past. I can't keep doing this, he says out loud, and the old man looks at him like he's never seen him before.
In the shower that look comes back to his thoughts. He's not sure he's ever seen that look on the old man's face- he's so used to the ready-made judgment he expects to see there, he's almost quit expecting something else. He wonders what else he's missed, but doesn't have the energy to pursue that actively- it'll have to mull for a while yet.
Drying off he notices more bruises, another cut. Torn nail. I can't keep doing this, he thinks, though he's always been careless in some way, asking more of his body than most, taking pride in what it endures for him even when it's a fool's trial he's put it through. But to take his frustration with the old man out on his own flesh-even through impatience- this can't go on.
He knows he can't rush it. He knows it'll need more attention- no, a different kind of attention- than he's given it. He begins to understand all over again that all the change has to happen on his side of the equation, that he has to trust that his change will allow for the old man to change, if he's going to. If he can.
But there's no use literally beating himself up over what's past. He'll never be the son who pleases the old man, never be the one the old man understands, and the old man will never be the parent he is comfortable around, the one he respects, wants to be like.
It's take courage to admit how much of the old man is in him. It'll take courage to admit how much of him the old man doesn't recognize. But if there's going to be change, courage- heart -is what it'll take. And that, he's learning, he has in more abundance than he'd ever dreamed.
When he calls Karl later on before bed, all Karl has to say is, Did it work? Beating yourself up? Did that change anything? to make him laugh.
No, not real well, he says.
Got an alternative? Karl asks.
Might have at that, Bones, he answers, and their conversation makes its way into what they give each other so well- space to explore and support to keep going, even in the dark places where it's hard to accept what's found. Live long and prosper Karl says to him as they hang up, and as he closes the phone and puts it down, he answers, smiling, I intend to.