Closed Doors and Open Windows (1/9)
Title: FOCUS
Author: The Fifth Musketeer
Email: TheFifthMusketeer@hotmail.com
Pairing: B/C, B/E pre-slash, light C/A
Rating: R (language/intense imagery)
Fandom: Everwood
Disclaimer: No, they're not mine. Sue me - I dare you.
Notes: Okay - first shot at the fandom. Be gentle. Also - this puppy is un-betad, so forgive me in advance.
Feedback: Yes, please.
BRIGHT
The dreams are always the same.
Staring into perfect blue eyes.
Soft lips … other parts not so soft - but then neither am I. It's a pungent mix of hot breath, arousal, and utter contentment.
I'm wandering too close to the edge. Drunk on smells and tastes and textures that, if I didn't know better, would seem only possible in dreamscape: too flawless for reality.
But more than the physical is the knowledge: the blind acceptance that I am safe and protected and exactly where I am supposed to be. There's no one here to make me feel small, or stupid or ashamed.
And just as I begin to believe that maybe this time it's real ... maybe this time I won't have to let go ... I wake up - sweaty and sticky and out of breath - lost in the real nightmare.
Life on the outside looking in.
I watch him with Amy. They're both trying so hard. He's groping for normal and Amy … well, she's got Colin set up on this pretty pedestal. She's just sure that things are going to turn out exactly like she dreamed. She doesn't get that Colin is different than he was - and that even if he wasn't … well, she just doesn't get it.
What would happen if she realized how little she knew Colin? What would she say if she truly understood what lead to the accident? And the big question: am I a bad person for wanting her to know? Is it wrong to want acknowledgment for what we were - even if we never get back there?
Not that I could ever do it. No matter what's lurking down in my gut, I'm sure as hell not going to be the one to tell her that she's dreaming of something that wasn't really - real, even before the accident.
She may irritate the shit out of me sometimes, but breaking her heart is something I don't want to have on my head.
So I concede. But sometimes I'm afraid that I'm so comfortable with being the one who loses that I'll miss my exit - my chance to fix this - or at least to move on.
Not that I can even get a glimpse of that particular horizon.
Every day, my reality is chipped away at, little by little. I look into his eyes and there's no recognition. He knows I'm Bright - best friend extraordinaire - but he doesn't remember. And the sick thing is, with all of my silent keening and self-pity, if I'm honest with myself, part of me is relieved.
Because there's a piece of me that I keep deep down, locked up in the pits of my being that's afraid my perfect moment wasn't quite as perfect as I wanted to believe; no matter how hard I tried to hold on.
Maybe I'm being a coward.
He's still Colin - whatever version - and my stomach still knots up when he gets close. But there's a new wall between us.
And for the first time in our lives, I'm a little afraid of breaking this one down. Afraid of what it would do to Colin - to Amy - to all of us.
So I hold on tight to the memories and keep telling myself that what I think we were, we ... were.
And I do the only thing I can.
I wait.
AMY
He thinks I don't know.
My God. How fucking stupid does he think I am?
More importantly, how fucking stupid did both of them think I was before? People are great at deluding themselves, sure. But having suspicions that the boy that you love knows his best friend - who happens to be your brother - better than he probably should, and actually getting an eye-full of said boy with his tongue down said brother's throat, are two completely different things.
Just before Colin and I got together.
Late at night.
Cold air burning my face as I made my way around the back of the house.
Seeing them in the shadows, locked in an embrace.
The kind of embrace you reserve for a lover.
But I convinced myself that they were just playing around. I figured that they'd been doing it since they were kids - and while knowing the object of your affection knows your brother's body better than he does yours is disturbing - I let it slide. Apparently boys experiment - or so I've been told. So I backed up ten steps, made a bunch of noise to give them ample time to “adjust,” and made my “entrance.” Their clothes were mussed and their flushed faces were a dead giveaway to anyone who wanted to know the truth.
I didn't
So I played dumb. I told myself that it didn't mean anything - and I figured whatever it was would stop once Colin and I got together.
But it didn't stop, and I hated Bright for that.
And then the world came to a screeching halt with the accident.
I was so involved in my own loss that Bright's never crossed my mind. By the time the shock had worn of, it was like Bright had pushed all his grief and pain deep down into a little corner of his soul - labeled it “Here There Be Dragons,” and refused to acknowledge its existence.
My parents worried about him - my father is very big on the Abbott's being textbook examples of health - physical and mental - and Bright simply wasn't following the six stages of grief like a good little boy.
But he played his part well, and Dad finally just threw up his hands - I think he decided that Bright was just too shallow to really feel the loss.
Little did he know.
A few months after the accident, I got up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night and I heard him in his room.
Crying.
Aside from Grandpa Abbott's funeral, I don't remember Bright crying. Ever. Not when he was hurt, or scared, or angry. Never.
And it wasn't gentle weeping. It was deep, gut-wrenching sobs that tear a person in two … that instantly made me want to go in and wrap my arms around him and promise him that everything would be okay. I didn't - I wasn't supposed to know the truth. But in that instant, that big glob of hate I had been carrying around sort of melted away. Suddenly “they were just playing around” sounded childish and insulting in my head. No matter how it looked to the outside world, my brother was suffering far more I had been willing to admit.
The next morning he was Bright again - my big, doofus jock brother who positioned himself strategically between me and our crazy father - allowing Dad to treat him like he was somehow the defective Abbott - while he indulged me at every turn.
And true to form, the flock of Everwood sheep followed suit.
I could lose myself in grief, but according to Everwood edict, Bright was supposed to just suck it up and move on. After all, I was the grieving girlfriend - he was just the “buddy.”
Or was it the other way around?
Then, just as fast as the world had stopped, it started again.
Now Colin's back and everything's different. It was one thing to come to some kind of terms with Bright and Colin's - relationship, for lack of a better word - when Colin was off the canvas, but now I can't seem to act on all the enlightened truths that I recognized when my boyfriend consisted of an inanimate object, magically animated by a series of wheels and gears and wires and tubes that seemed to make him - not alive - but at least lifelike.
But Colin's really back now - and I watch for any signs that he remembers.
There are none.
If he had woken up and asked for Bright - told me he loved him ... believe me, that scenario played in my head far more often than a joyful reunion between the two of us ... if he had done that, I think I would have had the strength to let go. Well, maybe not let go, but my hands could have been pried off of him with only a modicum of effort.
But he doesn't remember. And he wants me. When he holds me it feels more real than it ever did before the accident. When he kisses me, I don't feel like he's holding back this big part of himself that's not for me.
And now I can't step aside. I won't. As much as I love my brother - and I do, more than he knows - I'm not that strong.
So I revel in the lie - manipulate Colin away from Bright. I ignore the guilt that's welling up inside me. After all: I can't really be expected to be the one to push him in that direction, can I?
And while I feel like I'm losing my soul to this game I'm playing - it's working. The two men I love, my brother and my boyfriend, hardly speak anymore. Colin's mine, and I'll do whatever I have to do to keep him.
But there's still this voice inside my head that is constantly whispering, “he's not yours ... he never was ... how can you be so selfish.”
It's the part that mocks me with the truth: that it's only a matter of time before Bright looks longingly into Colin's eyes, and his Colin is staring back.
I'm not stupid. No matter how much I love Colin, I know I can't really control what's to come. So I get intimate with the concept of living on borrowed time.
And I do the only thing I can.
I wait.
COLIN
They think I don't remember.
And they were right in the beginning.
It wasn't about lack of understanding. I got it - they all love me. And there was some kind of connection there. Each of them sparked … I don't know … something.
Some more than others.
But every day I could see how much I was hurting them all, no matter what they said. And that look - it just killed me.
That's what made me seek out Ephram. I'm glad I did. I looked into his eyes and saw - well, nothing. No expectation, no fear - he's wasn't constantly watching for some glimmer of the guy I used to be. When he smiled at me or laughed at some lame joke I made, I knew it was about me - not some vague likeness I bore to a person they all remembered and I didn't.
I physically craved his presence in the beginning - like he was my lifeline to the man I am, since the one to the man I was had been severed.
But then that old rope reformed itself.
It was as if I was made privy to someone else's memories. They didn't seem like my own.
At first it was just little snippets. Pictures - strong feelings. An expression on a face … a smell, a taste.
But what I saw in my head didn't jive with what I'd been told.
And that was scary as hell.
At first I thought they were just dreams. I had nightmares in the hospital and they were … well, pretty awful. And while these were anything but awful, I thought maybe it was just more of my brain trying to get back to where it used to be.
But they were too vivid - too specific. Dreams don't come with exact smells - exact tastes … at least not the ones I remember.
Once I accepted them as memories - they snowballed. I remembered my parents, my childhood, my Cub Scout pledge. I remembered Amy and why we got together - why I was going to break up with her.
And Bright.
When my memories of Bright crystallized, it was the most confusing moment since I woke up. I remembered the way he looked at that other Colin. I remembered the way that other Colin looked back. I remembered all the things they did together - were together.
And I - Colin the Second - felt nothing.
I can still feel his skin and his mouth and his breath on my neck. I can still taste his sweat. It doesn't repulse me. It just doesn't complete me the way it did the dead guy I used to be.
And I'm sorry for that. Really.
He's still my best friend - lately in name only - but nonetheless … I don't want to hurt him.
So I weighed the options carefully: tell Bright I remember - following it up with a quick “but I don't feel that way anymore;” or silence.
Silence is kinder.
So now I bury my knowledge of what we were. I avoid his eyes and make sure mine are under control when I look at him. I don't think about what we did for fear that a mental picture might make me embarrassed to be in his presence. And I hope that he will just accept that his Colin is dead and that he's free to move on with his life.
But for now, I still see him looking at me like maybe this time he'll recognize the man behind my eyes … maybe this time I'll recognize him back. It's still an open wound to him, and I'm the last person who can help him heal. He's stubborn - he always was - but it will happen. One day soon, he'll look at me and not look so damned haunted. Soon we can go back to a friendship that was pushed aside for something more. Until then …
I wait.
EPHRAM
So your mother dies and your father goes insane and you find yourself in the middle of nowhere without an anchor.
You meet the locals and realize that behind the picture book façade is a world just as sorted and strange as the one you came from.
Life is weird.
I thought I'd found something I needed in Amy. She was like this beautiful prize - the thing that was going to make all the shit that got me here worthwhile.
She wasn't - and she didn't.
I still care about her. Part of me still wants her - but only a little part that's too stubborn to join the rest of me in the reality that she was never mine and that if I'm honest with myself, someone I didn't really need in the first place.
She was a desperate girl on a mission and I was a means to an end.
That's unfair. I think that she liked me - maybe she still does - but there was a more important task on her mind.
And it all hinged on the sleeping prince of Everwood.
He's not like I thought he'd be.
Maybe it has more to do with years of having issues with the whole “super jock” thing, but I expected him to be - stupid? An ass hole?
You know - like Bright - or at least the way I thought Bright was before I scratched his surface and found more.
When Colin abducted me into this weird little quasi family, I could tell Bright is trying - for Colin. I wasn't ready to call Bright my friend, but the idea didn't send me into hysterics. That was something.
And then things began to change. As Colin and I stopped playing me and my shadow, Bright came in a plopped down in the middle of my life - a fixture that wasn't going anywhere.
What surprised me was the fact that I didn't really want him to go anywhere.
Once I got over my misconceptions and really looked at him, I saw things that I think no one else does. Maybe it's because I don't have years of history with him and therefore my expectations aren't etched in granite, but Bright's not what people think.
He's … sweet. He loves his friends and family fiercely. He's always there to dive into the fray when things get ugly, and most amazingly, he doesn't expect anything in return.
But there's more.
I've seen the way he looks at Colin. No one else seems to notice, but I remember that look - hell, I wore that look after my mom died. It's the look of loss - of loneliness - of need. I won't speculate on what it means, though I'm pretty sure I know.
And while part of me is just thankful that I escaped one Abbot with my skin, I can't see that look and not reach out.
I don't know when I started caring about Bright Abbott, but I do. How the hell did that happen? I guess it doesn't matter.
If he needs a friend, I guess it can be me. So I'll give him the in.
I'll let him come to me. I just put the vibe out there that he's welcome, and …
I wait.
FIN
Author: The Fifth Musketeer
Email: TheFifthMusketeer@hotmail.com
Pairing: B/C, B/E pre-slash, light C/A
Rating: R (language/intense imagery)
Fandom: Everwood
Disclaimer: No, they're not mine. Sue me - I dare you.
Notes: Okay - first shot at the fandom. Be gentle. Also - this puppy is un-betad, so forgive me in advance.
Feedback: Yes, please.
BRIGHT
The dreams are always the same.
Staring into perfect blue eyes.
Soft lips … other parts not so soft - but then neither am I. It's a pungent mix of hot breath, arousal, and utter contentment.
I'm wandering too close to the edge. Drunk on smells and tastes and textures that, if I didn't know better, would seem only possible in dreamscape: too flawless for reality.
But more than the physical is the knowledge: the blind acceptance that I am safe and protected and exactly where I am supposed to be. There's no one here to make me feel small, or stupid or ashamed.
And just as I begin to believe that maybe this time it's real ... maybe this time I won't have to let go ... I wake up - sweaty and sticky and out of breath - lost in the real nightmare.
Life on the outside looking in.
I watch him with Amy. They're both trying so hard. He's groping for normal and Amy … well, she's got Colin set up on this pretty pedestal. She's just sure that things are going to turn out exactly like she dreamed. She doesn't get that Colin is different than he was - and that even if he wasn't … well, she just doesn't get it.
What would happen if she realized how little she knew Colin? What would she say if she truly understood what lead to the accident? And the big question: am I a bad person for wanting her to know? Is it wrong to want acknowledgment for what we were - even if we never get back there?
Not that I could ever do it. No matter what's lurking down in my gut, I'm sure as hell not going to be the one to tell her that she's dreaming of something that wasn't really - real, even before the accident.
She may irritate the shit out of me sometimes, but breaking her heart is something I don't want to have on my head.
So I concede. But sometimes I'm afraid that I'm so comfortable with being the one who loses that I'll miss my exit - my chance to fix this - or at least to move on.
Not that I can even get a glimpse of that particular horizon.
Every day, my reality is chipped away at, little by little. I look into his eyes and there's no recognition. He knows I'm Bright - best friend extraordinaire - but he doesn't remember. And the sick thing is, with all of my silent keening and self-pity, if I'm honest with myself, part of me is relieved.
Because there's a piece of me that I keep deep down, locked up in the pits of my being that's afraid my perfect moment wasn't quite as perfect as I wanted to believe; no matter how hard I tried to hold on.
Maybe I'm being a coward.
He's still Colin - whatever version - and my stomach still knots up when he gets close. But there's a new wall between us.
And for the first time in our lives, I'm a little afraid of breaking this one down. Afraid of what it would do to Colin - to Amy - to all of us.
So I hold on tight to the memories and keep telling myself that what I think we were, we ... were.
And I do the only thing I can.
I wait.
AMY
He thinks I don't know.
My God. How fucking stupid does he think I am?
More importantly, how fucking stupid did both of them think I was before? People are great at deluding themselves, sure. But having suspicions that the boy that you love knows his best friend - who happens to be your brother - better than he probably should, and actually getting an eye-full of said boy with his tongue down said brother's throat, are two completely different things.
Just before Colin and I got together.
Late at night.
Cold air burning my face as I made my way around the back of the house.
Seeing them in the shadows, locked in an embrace.
The kind of embrace you reserve for a lover.
But I convinced myself that they were just playing around. I figured that they'd been doing it since they were kids - and while knowing the object of your affection knows your brother's body better than he does yours is disturbing - I let it slide. Apparently boys experiment - or so I've been told. So I backed up ten steps, made a bunch of noise to give them ample time to “adjust,” and made my “entrance.” Their clothes were mussed and their flushed faces were a dead giveaway to anyone who wanted to know the truth.
I didn't
So I played dumb. I told myself that it didn't mean anything - and I figured whatever it was would stop once Colin and I got together.
But it didn't stop, and I hated Bright for that.
And then the world came to a screeching halt with the accident.
I was so involved in my own loss that Bright's never crossed my mind. By the time the shock had worn of, it was like Bright had pushed all his grief and pain deep down into a little corner of his soul - labeled it “Here There Be Dragons,” and refused to acknowledge its existence.
My parents worried about him - my father is very big on the Abbott's being textbook examples of health - physical and mental - and Bright simply wasn't following the six stages of grief like a good little boy.
But he played his part well, and Dad finally just threw up his hands - I think he decided that Bright was just too shallow to really feel the loss.
Little did he know.
A few months after the accident, I got up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night and I heard him in his room.
Crying.
Aside from Grandpa Abbott's funeral, I don't remember Bright crying. Ever. Not when he was hurt, or scared, or angry. Never.
And it wasn't gentle weeping. It was deep, gut-wrenching sobs that tear a person in two … that instantly made me want to go in and wrap my arms around him and promise him that everything would be okay. I didn't - I wasn't supposed to know the truth. But in that instant, that big glob of hate I had been carrying around sort of melted away. Suddenly “they were just playing around” sounded childish and insulting in my head. No matter how it looked to the outside world, my brother was suffering far more I had been willing to admit.
The next morning he was Bright again - my big, doofus jock brother who positioned himself strategically between me and our crazy father - allowing Dad to treat him like he was somehow the defective Abbott - while he indulged me at every turn.
And true to form, the flock of Everwood sheep followed suit.
I could lose myself in grief, but according to Everwood edict, Bright was supposed to just suck it up and move on. After all, I was the grieving girlfriend - he was just the “buddy.”
Or was it the other way around?
Then, just as fast as the world had stopped, it started again.
Now Colin's back and everything's different. It was one thing to come to some kind of terms with Bright and Colin's - relationship, for lack of a better word - when Colin was off the canvas, but now I can't seem to act on all the enlightened truths that I recognized when my boyfriend consisted of an inanimate object, magically animated by a series of wheels and gears and wires and tubes that seemed to make him - not alive - but at least lifelike.
But Colin's really back now - and I watch for any signs that he remembers.
There are none.
If he had woken up and asked for Bright - told me he loved him ... believe me, that scenario played in my head far more often than a joyful reunion between the two of us ... if he had done that, I think I would have had the strength to let go. Well, maybe not let go, but my hands could have been pried off of him with only a modicum of effort.
But he doesn't remember. And he wants me. When he holds me it feels more real than it ever did before the accident. When he kisses me, I don't feel like he's holding back this big part of himself that's not for me.
And now I can't step aside. I won't. As much as I love my brother - and I do, more than he knows - I'm not that strong.
So I revel in the lie - manipulate Colin away from Bright. I ignore the guilt that's welling up inside me. After all: I can't really be expected to be the one to push him in that direction, can I?
And while I feel like I'm losing my soul to this game I'm playing - it's working. The two men I love, my brother and my boyfriend, hardly speak anymore. Colin's mine, and I'll do whatever I have to do to keep him.
But there's still this voice inside my head that is constantly whispering, “he's not yours ... he never was ... how can you be so selfish.”
It's the part that mocks me with the truth: that it's only a matter of time before Bright looks longingly into Colin's eyes, and his Colin is staring back.
I'm not stupid. No matter how much I love Colin, I know I can't really control what's to come. So I get intimate with the concept of living on borrowed time.
And I do the only thing I can.
I wait.
COLIN
They think I don't remember.
And they were right in the beginning.
It wasn't about lack of understanding. I got it - they all love me. And there was some kind of connection there. Each of them sparked … I don't know … something.
Some more than others.
But every day I could see how much I was hurting them all, no matter what they said. And that look - it just killed me.
That's what made me seek out Ephram. I'm glad I did. I looked into his eyes and saw - well, nothing. No expectation, no fear - he's wasn't constantly watching for some glimmer of the guy I used to be. When he smiled at me or laughed at some lame joke I made, I knew it was about me - not some vague likeness I bore to a person they all remembered and I didn't.
I physically craved his presence in the beginning - like he was my lifeline to the man I am, since the one to the man I was had been severed.
But then that old rope reformed itself.
It was as if I was made privy to someone else's memories. They didn't seem like my own.
At first it was just little snippets. Pictures - strong feelings. An expression on a face … a smell, a taste.
But what I saw in my head didn't jive with what I'd been told.
And that was scary as hell.
At first I thought they were just dreams. I had nightmares in the hospital and they were … well, pretty awful. And while these were anything but awful, I thought maybe it was just more of my brain trying to get back to where it used to be.
But they were too vivid - too specific. Dreams don't come with exact smells - exact tastes … at least not the ones I remember.
Once I accepted them as memories - they snowballed. I remembered my parents, my childhood, my Cub Scout pledge. I remembered Amy and why we got together - why I was going to break up with her.
And Bright.
When my memories of Bright crystallized, it was the most confusing moment since I woke up. I remembered the way he looked at that other Colin. I remembered the way that other Colin looked back. I remembered all the things they did together - were together.
And I - Colin the Second - felt nothing.
I can still feel his skin and his mouth and his breath on my neck. I can still taste his sweat. It doesn't repulse me. It just doesn't complete me the way it did the dead guy I used to be.
And I'm sorry for that. Really.
He's still my best friend - lately in name only - but nonetheless … I don't want to hurt him.
So I weighed the options carefully: tell Bright I remember - following it up with a quick “but I don't feel that way anymore;” or silence.
Silence is kinder.
So now I bury my knowledge of what we were. I avoid his eyes and make sure mine are under control when I look at him. I don't think about what we did for fear that a mental picture might make me embarrassed to be in his presence. And I hope that he will just accept that his Colin is dead and that he's free to move on with his life.
But for now, I still see him looking at me like maybe this time he'll recognize the man behind my eyes … maybe this time I'll recognize him back. It's still an open wound to him, and I'm the last person who can help him heal. He's stubborn - he always was - but it will happen. One day soon, he'll look at me and not look so damned haunted. Soon we can go back to a friendship that was pushed aside for something more. Until then …
I wait.
EPHRAM
So your mother dies and your father goes insane and you find yourself in the middle of nowhere without an anchor.
You meet the locals and realize that behind the picture book façade is a world just as sorted and strange as the one you came from.
Life is weird.
I thought I'd found something I needed in Amy. She was like this beautiful prize - the thing that was going to make all the shit that got me here worthwhile.
She wasn't - and she didn't.
I still care about her. Part of me still wants her - but only a little part that's too stubborn to join the rest of me in the reality that she was never mine and that if I'm honest with myself, someone I didn't really need in the first place.
She was a desperate girl on a mission and I was a means to an end.
That's unfair. I think that she liked me - maybe she still does - but there was a more important task on her mind.
And it all hinged on the sleeping prince of Everwood.
He's not like I thought he'd be.
Maybe it has more to do with years of having issues with the whole “super jock” thing, but I expected him to be - stupid? An ass hole?
You know - like Bright - or at least the way I thought Bright was before I scratched his surface and found more.
When Colin abducted me into this weird little quasi family, I could tell Bright is trying - for Colin. I wasn't ready to call Bright my friend, but the idea didn't send me into hysterics. That was something.
And then things began to change. As Colin and I stopped playing me and my shadow, Bright came in a plopped down in the middle of my life - a fixture that wasn't going anywhere.
What surprised me was the fact that I didn't really want him to go anywhere.
Once I got over my misconceptions and really looked at him, I saw things that I think no one else does. Maybe it's because I don't have years of history with him and therefore my expectations aren't etched in granite, but Bright's not what people think.
He's … sweet. He loves his friends and family fiercely. He's always there to dive into the fray when things get ugly, and most amazingly, he doesn't expect anything in return.
But there's more.
I've seen the way he looks at Colin. No one else seems to notice, but I remember that look - hell, I wore that look after my mom died. It's the look of loss - of loneliness - of need. I won't speculate on what it means, though I'm pretty sure I know.
And while part of me is just thankful that I escaped one Abbot with my skin, I can't see that look and not reach out.
I don't know when I started caring about Bright Abbott, but I do. How the hell did that happen? I guess it doesn't matter.
If he needs a friend, I guess it can be me. So I'll give him the in.
I'll let him come to me. I just put the vibe out there that he's welcome, and …
I wait.
FIN