For Sawyer (Timed for... whenever)

[little_moons]

We had dinner, like a family, but that only seemed to make it more obvious how many chairs around the table are empty now. The girls are moody, angry and cranky and sad, even though they don't always seem to know why, but when we sit at the table, the three of us, it's like they know how thin a thread I'm hanging on by and they just... behave. They

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[little_moons]

It's funny. Sometimes I wonder if Heider wasn't trying to mold me into something. Maybe it was unintentional, but he taught me all his tricks, who to go for and when, how to make a kid do whatever you wanted.

If a kid does good you gotta reward 'em.

I could see myself going down a different path, using that, thoughts that I've had that I don't wanna admit to anyone. All those things I did back when I was a kid. How easy it was to get the other guys in class afraid of me. How easy it was to keep them from tattling to the teachers about me. And all those little things I learned from him that came in handy when I started to hook.

It seems crazy to let yourself become the person you hate, the person who fucked you over, but maybe it's just inevitable. It's something I avoided, for the most part, but I can see it, that possible path I could've taken, following me around like a ghost wherever I go.

The shit that happens to you when you're a kid... It sticks with you more than anything. It fucks with everything. One summer, one night

[little_moons]

"I don't know how to be a fuckin' father. Or a fuckin' adult, even," I shrug, tracing a random pattern in the condensation pooled on the counter. "And before you fuckin' argue that I'm doin' fine or whatever, I'm fakin' it half the fucking time."

But most people are, anyway, I guess. There's no fuckin' handbook on how to raise your dead husband's kids.

[cibosity]

"Like the rest of us ain't fakin' the hell out of everything we do? Christ, Neil, it's not like there's a friggin' handbook on how to be there for a friend, let alone as a parent," I reply, my gaze caught on the movement of his finger through the water on the counter. "And it ain't like... somethin' you've prepared yourself for."

Part of me even wants to point out that it might not have been anything he wanted, but it seems too cruel to put it like that now. I've seen him with those girls. He ain't giving them up for anything.

"S'far as I'm concerned, you've already learned how to be a goddamned father. And adult. But that don't make it any more comfortable to think about than it was before."