Don't just stand there, say nice things to me
All right, folks. This here has been bugging me for a while now and I finally made myself write it. It's kind of a sequel to Making friends with shadows on my wall and it would be better if you read that one first, BUT it can be read as a one-shot, my friend soncnica told me.
Without further ado, I present:
Title: Don't just stand there, say nice things to me
Author: marlowe78
Pairing: none (sorry!)
Rating: lots and lots of swear-words. So I guess PG 13 or over (but if you're 13, you should not be on my journal anyway!)
Word Count:~5.000
Warnings: language, physically abusive home-life (kinda?)
No beta (if anyone spots anything, tell me and I'll change it! Promise, no bad blood)
Disclaimer: All fiction, as in: not true! Title is from the song "Push" by Matchbox 20. Go, 90s!
Summary:: Romance-novels and chick-flicks will tell you that people fall in love only once and it’s so damn wonderful that everything’s sunshine and kitties and the love will last forever and ever.
Romance is wrong, though. It’s fantasy. People fall out of love all the time, it’s sometimes ugly and sometimes it’s just what it is.
And it’s absolutely possible to fall in love more than once.
The first time he gets punched, he’s twelve. Up until then, his dad never raised a hand against him; there had always been an invisible barrier that his dad hadn’t ever crossed.
It’s by far not the first time he’s seen a punch, though. Twelve years, and he already knew for six years how to call 911 “’cause my momma is all bloody”, and in school they’d learned that you call 911 when someone got hurt.
Twelve years, and he's already known for six-and-a-half years how not to call 911.
Because yes, his daddy is a hitter. But only when he’s upset. Only when the stress is too much. Only when things get too much for him and he can’t take it anymore. “Your daddy is a good man, and he loves us more than anything,” he hears while he fetches the peas from the freezer. “He just has a lot of stress.”
Stress, he learns, is a bad, bad thing. Stress is dangerous and makes his momma cry. Twelve years, and now he’s learned just how painful stress can be, and how long it takes for a bruised cheek to heal.
Since he looks weird with makeup, he just covers his bruises in a different way than his momma: The next day he goes out and calls Jimmy Ingerman a pansy in front of his friends and nobody notices the one bruise that wasn’t made by Jimmy’s fists.
After that, he learns to notice stress. He learns how to sniff it in a room full of people, how to gauge the severity of the stress-level just by the feel of the air. He learns when to stay clear of his dad and how to be so silent that nobody would even notice him.
He also gets in a lot more fights with the football-team.
**
When he is fourteen, he’d only been hit four times more. On his fifteenth birthday, though, he figures out that while he would be un-hit if he keeps quiet, his momma isn’t skillful enough and still gets punched a bit.
It’s not bad, though. It never is bad. She keeps telling him it’s not bad, and he tries to believe her, tries to not see the dark purple underneath the makeup. “He loves us. He’ll never do it if it wasn’t so bad at work. If we tell people, they will make him leave. I don’t want him to leave. Do you want your daddy to leave?”
When he’s fifteen-and-a-half, he realizes that his mom isn’t clumsy or insensitive to stress as he’d thought. No. No, she notices just fine. But instead of sneaking away and trying to stay out of sight and out of trouble, she goes and lights a fuse under the dad-bomb.
She never starts a fight, never. But she’ll drop a broom or accidentally touch his dad, just when the tension is so high that it could be cut with a knife.
It takes a long time for him to realize why his momma would be so stupid.
**
When he’s sixteen, there hadn’t been many stressful moments for nearly a year. Things are easy and mellow, and he makes himself believe that it wasn’t so bad, those years before, if now everything will stay nice and sane and painless.
He’s still sixteen when Bobby McGraw is murdered.
Bobby is - was? - a kid from his school. Maybe two years younger than him, maybe only one, but he was small and slender and had big, happy eyes and a smile that made people perk up when he was around.
In school, they’d learned about the childlike patterns, how big eyes and a round head made people and animals react with caring and how those things wake parental feelings. How people breed tiny little dogs in that pattern because people want to take care of such cute things.
Big blue eyes, a round head with a mop of blond curls and a bright smile didn’t help Bobby anything, though. They found him in a dumpster, all broken and bloody and well, his dad never said more than that, but he’s not stupid. Also, people talk.
It’s a tragedy, and he feels really sorry for the kid. He does, honest! But more than that, he feels sorry for himself and his mom. Cause his dad… his dad was there when they found the boy. Was there right after the call came in and was there when they secured the perimeter and took all the pictures and whatever it is they do when there is a dead kid in a dumpster.
His dad is very stressed when he comes home.
Dad’s also very stressed the following days, and though it doesn’t get physical right away, there is a lot of yelling and screaming involved.
It’s not his mom who lights the fuse this time, not a broom and not some clatter.
**
“Goddamn it Jolene! I am not in the mood for this shit, I really can’t deal with that now. He’s sixteen, he should know not to punch people just ‘cause they said somethin’ about some girl!”
“Right, ‘cause I shoulda learned at home not to hit people, right, Dad?” He’s seething, more anger than sense right now. Not because of the fight with Jimmy, his favorite enemy just because that guy is an ass of enormous proportions. No, he’s just so fucking angry, feels his skin itch and an urge to just … hit something.
“Son, you better watch your mouth here. I’m not in the mood for your teenage-drama-shit. I just had to talk to Bobby’s parents about who could’ve wanted to rape and murder their only child! So don’tcha give me any shit here!”
His mom gasps when his dad talks about Bobby, confirmation about what had been a rumor until then. “What, Jolene? Ya think that’s not what they did to that kid? Fourteen, he was fourteen and I had to see him and… I… I just wanna have some peace here, not deal with my own punk-ass ungrateful boy who’s too full of himself. All I’m askin’ of ya is some quiet-time and you can’t even do that for me?”
If he looks back to this moment later, it’s not really an unreasonable request. It’s really not too much to ask. But he’s itching for a fight, and not letting his mom be shouted at seems - in that moment - like a totally reasonable excuse. “Hey, leave her alone,” he yells. “Principal Miller said it’s gotta be you who talks ta him, it’s not her fault!”
“Boy…”
“No! Don’t ‘boy’ me, Dad! It’s not her fault that your work sucks and that someone murdered that kid, she didn’t do it and - “
The punch is really, really not unexpected. It’s been coming on for some time, and it’s a relief to finally get it over with. Normally, that would be the moment everything freezes and his dad would get all misty-eyed and sorry, he’d crawl away into a bottle and only emerge the next day, when everybody would pretend all is a-okay.
It’s not a normal day, though.
The next punch is a surprise, and the one after and the fourth one not anymore. He’s used to a lot - punches, kicks, bites and scratches - but those are all from kids his own age, a little older maybe. Not from his dad, not from a grown-up policeman who has been stretched to the limit like a rubber band for a week until today he snapped.
It’s a whole lotta different, feels like a whole lot longer and hurts a whole lotta more.
**
The most fucked-up thing is that he can’t even hate his dad. He can’t even say he’s a bad father. Hell, he’s a really good guy most of the time. His childhood had been fairly happy; there are a lot more good memories than bad ones. They went to the beach and drove to Disneyland, they drove to Grandma’s farm and went horse-riding for three-day-trips every summer. He grew up in sunshine and dust, learned to love the smell of hay and the apple-like tang of horses. When he looks back, ninety-seven days out of a hundred are good and normal - not perfect, because parents are just never perfect - but good.
He loves his dad, loves him like only a child can love someone, completely and with certainty. He’s never, not ever doubted that his parents both love him, too, and he’s so fucking proud of them. His mom works in a hardware-store and there is no tool she doesn’t know and nothing she can’t use. She’s smart with math and taught him how to cut a tree with a chainsaw but she also knows how to cook and how to be a mom. And his dad… his dad’s a fucking policeman, what little boy doesn’t dream of that? It had taken one look at his daddy in uniform to declare proudly in the stark conviction of all five-year-olds that one day, he’d “be a ‘liceman, too” and when his dad had swept him up in his arms, the world had been both bigger and safer than ever.
When he looks at his parents, what he sees is pure love and happiness. He’s her chosen husband, and she’s his chosen wife, and he knows that he hung the moon and she outshines the sun if you’d ask either of them.
He wants that kind of love for himself one day.
So no, his dad’s not a bad man. He doesn’t go around and start fights with his mom or with him; he isn’t some loudmouthing wifebeater who doesn’t know the good things he has in his life.
No, he’s really, truly a good man who sadly has a problem when it comes to working out tension.
And sometimes, he apparently has a problem when it comes to stopping what he started.
**
When the blows stop he realizes that he’s curled up in a ball in the corner, arms raised to protect his head. He’s crying snot and tears like he hasn’t in years, sobbing and long past speaking or begging for it to stop. He can hear his mom crying and sobbing, too, and he hears a hitch that must come from his dad but he can’t be sure. Doesn’t dare to look.
“Oh god… Oh god, no.”
“Matty…Matthew…” he hears her call his dad but still doesn’t dare look.
“I’m sorry,” he hears himself whisper, “sorry, sorry” and he can’t make himself stop.
Then, there is a thud as something heavy hits the floor, right in front of him. He flinches. “Son, I… God, look at me. C’mon, boy, just let me see…”
A hand is touching him, and he knows, he fucking knows that it’s his dad’s hand and that it’s over, the storm has passed and the bomb has been lit and blown all up. He knows that, but his body doesn’t listen to reason and just curls up tighter. There might have even been a whimper, but he’s not sure.
“God, I… Oh God, what have … I…”
“Matt, go to the bathroom and get the first-aid-kit.” His mom’s voice of steel, the one no-one disobeys. There’s no waver in it anymore, just plain certainty about the things that have to be done. His mom will save the day, he just knows it.
“Jo…”
“Now.”
His dad stands and leaves, and next it’s his mom in front of him, gently pulling his arms away from his face. She sighs when he looks at her, tear-tracks and red eyes the only clue that she’s upset. “You stupid kid,” she murmurs, but it’s not a real chastising. “You stupid, stupid boy.” Gently, she turns his head and peers in his eyes, makes him look first right then left, then right again. “Doesn’t seem too bad. You got a headache?”
He doesn’t know how to respond. Right now, nothing hurts, everything is numb around him. Maybe this didn’t happen? Maybe he’s dreaming.
“Jo.”
He forces himself to not flinch this time and looks at his dad who is holding the first-aid-kit out like it’s too dangerous for him to be near his wife and son. His knuckles are red and there is even a little blood on one of them but what hits him, really hits him, is the look in his dad’s eyes.
His strong, powerful, superman-dad is scared. Scared and lost and looks like a little kid, and he wants to hug him and tell him everything will be better. Everything will be fine. He even opens his mouth but sadly, that’s the moment the numbness decides to vanish and everything comes crashing down on him with a force that makes him moan and cry out in pain.
**
Things are never the same after that.
Good thing, his dad never raises his hand against anyone of them. No punch, no hit, not even loud words - not even when they would’ve been deserved.
Bad thing, everything is fragile now, everything's in shards around them.
When they meet in a doorway, Dad backs away and turns his head, averts his gaze. There’s shame in his eyes whenever he looks at him and he wants to shake his dad and scream and yell to come back, to please come back and be fine again!
He doesn’t, though, because he promised his mom.
After she’d cleaned him up that night, she’d taken him up to his bedroom. His stomach had hurt fiercely, worse even than his head, and he’d prayed that he wouldn’t have to throw up because that would really be a bitch.
She’d sat next to him on the bed, stroking his cheek absentmindedly and humming an old song.
“Mom?”
She’d sighed, then turned to him. “I can take you to the hospital. If you’re hurt too bad, we’ll go.” She’d hummed a bit more. “They will know it’s not just from a fight. There will be questions.”
“I won’t say anything, mom. Promise.”
She’d turned back to him and looked him in the eyes. “You can, though. It’s okay if you do. It… tonight,” her breath hitched a little “this is more than a bloody nose or a black eye. Matt… your dad…” Tears had been running down her face like she hadn’t even realized she was crying. “If you want me to, I will pack us a bag and we’ll leave. We can go to Grandma for a while, or move somewhere away. If… if you want, we’ll tell them all the truth, leave him for good. This… this isn’t right. Shouldn’t have happened, never. Never.”
He’d stared at her, at the pain in her eyes, the fear. And he’d known then that it wasn’t just pain for him, for what had happened to him - it wasn’t fear of her husband. No, it had been fear of leaving the man she loved, loved more than herself. And she would leave him, would move, would even got to the police and bring the love of her life to jail if that’s what her son thought right.
Later, he will realize that it should never have been his decision, shouldn’t have been put on his shoulders. Yes, he’d been sixteen and all, but he’d still been a kid! He’d still been too young to even understand the consequences. All he’d known then was that his mom didn’t want to leave, that she loved his dad and well, he loved his dad, too.
Later, he will know that even if she hadn’t meant to, she’d forced her son to decide between her own future misery and his recent pain and fear.
He’d shaken his head, then. “I don’t wanna leave, mom. I’ll … We can … I’ll be better, and we’ll be good.”
Later, he will realize that she’d left him in the believe that it was his own fault his dad had exploded, his own fault that he had to stay away from school for a week - his own fault that he’d pissed blood for three days and that he couldn’t eat anything but soup and cereal until his teeth had stopped hurting.
Then, though, he’d just been relieved that his mom stopped crying.
**
They catch Bobby’s murderer three days later.
**
It’s never the same. It’s never good again, everything’s weird and shaky and even though he has no reason to, has never seen his dad even raise his voice again, he can’t shake the fear. He’s afraid the other shoe will drop, afraid to make noise. Afraid that if he makes a mistake, the careful balance will come to an end and everything will shatter on the floor.
He has the feeling that his dad is afraid of coming home. Is afraid of him.
It’s really fucked up that he’d rather get punched again than live in this world of glass.
With no chance to fix things, he takes the first opportunity and starts his plan to become a policeman. Because even though his dad had problems with the stress of the job, there’s still nothing he wants more. He wants to be a good cop, wants to help people. Wants to be strong and tough and smart and good, wants his parents to be proud of him. Wants the camaraderie of colleagues that he’s grown up with, wants barbeques and inside-jokes, laughter and beer and easy acceptance.
So at nineteen, he packs his bags and leaves for college, goes to Florida for a degree in criminology and only comes home for awkward, stilted family-dinners on holidays. It’s painful to watch them tread carefully around him, and the visits get shorter and shorter.
**
They come to his graduation and when he’s sworn in. They are proud, he can see it in their eyes, and if the hug from his dad is too careful and the smile on his mom’s face a little too brittle, he just pretends not to notice.
At twenty-three, he gets his first long-term partner and learns to swallow his temper if he wants to stick this job out.
**
Somewhere between twenty-four and twenty-nine, he wins three national marksmanship competitions and comes second four times.
When he’s twenty-nine, he can’t stand the moisture anymore and applies to pretty much anywhere in the US just so he can leave fucking Florida.
They offer him a position at the HBT-unit in Chicago and he goes and buys a warm sweater and doesn’t look back.
**
In all this shit, throughout all the bad things and all the good things, he’s fallen in love four times.
First time is in Florida and he’s twenty-five with a big mouth and a knee-melting smile. He’s chasing some guy who’d made it his hobby to beat up gay men and when he tackles him to the ground and the asshole punches him on the chin, they have a brief but very satisfying scuffle.
It’s when he cuffs the asshole and his partner comes around the corner, huffing and puffing because well, honestly, Morris is way too fat for chasing anyone that he feels the pure joy and elation of being able to do this. Of being allowed to get one violent asshole away from the streets and being able to cuff this one asshole right there, show him that the law might not be perfect but it‘s still able to kick asshole-ass.
He’s fallen head-over-heels in love with his job.
**
Second time he falls in love is a lot more subtle, not as noticeable as the first. Still, he can trace it back to one exact moment in time - Thursday, 5th of May, around three pm. The news are just coming on when his car finally crosses into the city-limits of Chicago, long track from Florida has sucked the fun out of this road-trip a long time ago. His ass hurts and his knees creak and his fucking eyes are dry as dust. But all that is forgotten now that he sees her for the first time in all her glittering, cold-hearted glory. He’s fallen ass-over-teakettle for his city, for the smell and the wind and the cold and the air, the mood and the fucking food, and it’s not dulled at all, even five years later.
**
The third time, and maybe the most important one, is at Berkowitz’ summer-barbeque. She’s wearing jeans and a ripped tank-top, her hair in a two-colored pixy-cut - white tips over jack-black roots. She looks like a skunk and she laughs when he tells her, and he knows, just knows that he’s in trouble if this woman came here with someone else.
He never finds out if she did, but she left with him that night and she hasn’t yet left his bed. He’s crazy in love with her and would do fucking anything, would do cartwheels in the rain for her if she wanted him to. In full gear, in front of his team. He’ll ask her to marry him, one of these days, he already knows because this kind of love… well. He won’t let it just pass him by. And he won’t let it leave and won’t destroy it or taint it in any way.
**
The fourth time he falls in love, it’s completely surprising, absolutely unexpected and very, very painful.
Like with his city, he can pinpoint the moment though at the time, he doesn’t realize that that’s what it is, that’s what it will be.
He’s thirty-four and sitting in his favorite bar, watching the world over his fourth glass of beer and his sixth shot of… something. He’s old and young at the same time, feels like the world chewed him up and spit him out. He is too wired to go home and yet there is nowhere he’d rather be and he wishes not for the first time that he could talk to his dad about stuff. But he hasn’t seen his parents since … well, too fucking long. He feels too much like a stranger in their house, like he’s intruding on something and like everyone is waiting for him to destroy everything.
He sticks to phone-calls and e-mails.
Doodling in the moisture-rings from his glass, he morosely thinks that maybe this was always supposed to happen, that this kind of life has always been laid out for him ever since he was twelve.
With a weary sigh, he raises his glass when Jensen fucking Ackles slumps onto the stool right next to him, grabs his drink and glares right into his skull.
“Go home, Kane. Stacy doesn’t deserve to pour your drunk ass into bed.”
**
No, that’s not the moment. It’s just the prelude. Have some fucking patience!
**
“Shuddup and leave me ‘lone, Ackles. Newbies don’ get ta complain yet.”
“Ah, right. Because how could I possibly understand? Since I’m such a fucking newbie that I’ve done this fucking job just as long as you? ‘nother city doesn’t make it another job, asshole.”
“Fuck off,” he growls, because the itch is getting stronger underneath his skin. “Jus’ lemme drink and … jus’ fuck off.”
“I won’t. Cause, you know, I’ve seen this road. I fucking know this road. Your day sucked, I get it, I get it!”
And the worst thing is that Jensen probably really does get it. He’s not a kid and he’s not stupid, and he probably had to shoot a guy too. Just ‘cause he probably did it face-to-face doesn’t make it better, or worse.
“I get it, Kane, but this here,” Jensen points to the row of glasses on the counter “this leads only to misery. It leads to being hung-over, and it leads to one drink more to get the shaking out of your hands. It leads to losing focus and it will lead to losing people!”
He’s had enough, the itch is a burn now, crawling all along his neck and Chris can feel himself stiffening and that traitorous tick underneath his left eye. He pushes back from the bar to get distance because well… he doesn’t really want to satisfy his itchy skin. He really, really doesn’t. But the fucking drinks make him stumble and fucking Ackles grabs his arm and next thing he knows, he pushes back and grabs Jensen’s shirt, turns him around and shoves him far away with an angry snarl. “Don’t fucking touch me!”
“Hey, what the fuck is your problem? Get your panties untwisted, you asshole, and …”
He doesn’t let him finish, turns to walk away with shaking fists. But Jensen, the fucker, is too dumb to realize the hornet’s nest he’s stuck his foot into and he grabs his shoulder to turn him back around. Maybe he’s got a temper, too.
Doesn’t matter the reasons, it’s the right spark to light the fuse.
**
Down there on the dirty floor, amidst dust, carried-in dogshit and sticky residue from gallons of spilled drinks, among lost coins and dropped peanuts and very probably an unhealthy amount of spit and snot, he comes back to himself right before Jensen twists his arm behind his back in a very non-perfect but perfectly painful police-hold. He doesn’t know if he’s really crying or if there is blood running over his cheeks, but there is a vicious twist from Jensen so he has a perfect excuse if there are in fact tears.
“I got it, I got it. Sorry for the mess, we’re outta here,” he can hear above him and he doesn’t resist when Jensen grabs him and marches him outside. A few catcalls and swearing accompanies their track towards the back-door, and well, seems like he’ll have to find some other watering-hole from now on ‘cause a glance around reveals that there is a lot more furniture broken now than it was before.
Outside, the cold air hits Chris like a punch and sobers him quick and thoroughly. He groans, part embarrassment and part pain, and with that he’s shoved forward so unexpectedly that he falls over a trashbag, only managing to twist so he falls on his back and not his face.
Probably wouldn’t matter, there’s this stretched-out feeling around his eye and he can taste the blood in his mouth. He’s trying not to think too much about the agony that sits in the middle of his face, the one that used to be a nose.
“You done now, you asshole?”
Jensen doesn’t look much better than Chris is feeling, holding himself like there are some ribs or maybe kidneys giving him hell. It makes Chris feel like shit - this wasn’t supposed to ever happen. Hell, there is a fucking reason he drinks his brains away, he’s not doing it for shit and giggles.
“Really? Didn’t seem a lot like there was a plan from where I was standing.”
Chris groans. “Di’ a say that out loud?”
“Yeah. Now, gonna tell me what brilliant plan you had there, or do we have to go another round?”
There’s an awkward silence in the back-alley and the yowl of a cat has them jumping like little kids at Halloween.
“I’m not leavin’ here without some fucking explanation, Kane. I’m not watching you drink yourself to death. I know how alcohol hooks you if you’re not careful, and there was no care in the way you drank. I’ve seen my dad drink his life away, swallow his job, his family and all he had left. Dammit, Chris.” Jensen raises his hand to swipe it through his hair but stops with a pained hiss. He looks bruised and battered and for a second, Chris imagines how Stacy would look in his place. He shudders. “I don’t want to bury you because your liver shriveled up and quit, man. It’s not a nice way to go, not a fun thing to watch.”
“Yeah, well.” He’s not angry anymore. His skin, where it doesn’t hurt, is quiet and mellow, all the fire gone out like it hadn’t been there. There’s only shame left for losing it like that. For brawling in a bar like some two-bit hooligan and for hurting his partner who hasn’t even unpacked all his boxes. There’s really no pride left to lose. “Better’n going home right after and stew around ‘till ya yell and kick at your woman.”
Thing is, Ackles is smart. There’s not many dumb people in the squad, despite all the jokes, but Jensen’s really fucking smart. And Chris watches as he gets it, watches his eyes widen until the bleeding cut over his eyebrow makes them stop.
“Shit. Really?”
“You seen your road, I seen mine. ‘s not much of a choice, really.”
**
Jensen drives him back because the little Boy Scout had just followed him after their fucked-up job in the bank. Something must’ve tipped him off, cause Chris sure as hell doesn’t go to any of the police-bars when he gets this way. He’s got a temper-problem, not a lack of brain.
They don’t say anything, some song playing quietly on the radio to help resolve any lingering tension. Strangely enough, there isn’t much of that. They’re both silent but not moody, tired to their bones.
When they reach his street, Chris contemplates if he should thank him - and wonders for what. For beating the shit out of Jensen? It’s a bit too painful to make that one believable. For stopping him drink? He’s still not too happy about that. Maybe just for driving him home - would’ve been hard to get a taxi, as bloody as he is.
But there’s no need, it seems. Jensen just stops, turns to look at him and holds out his hand. “See ya Thursday, partner.”
Chris shakes it with relief and makes his way up the stairs, hoping to sneak in without Stacy noticing.
He catches himself smiling when he catalogues all the bruises over his body in the mirror. Ackles packs one hell of a punch, is one hell of a fighter. Chris might kinda like this guy.
**
Five weeks later, right in the middle of the hostage-negotiations, a faulty gas-line explodes and takes out three hostages, the culprit and two policemen, one of them from their unit. It’s a mess, everyone’s a mess, and at the end of the day, Chris can feel his heartbeat pulse in the tips of his hair, trying to bury the itch by glaring his locker into submission. It’s not working well. That’s when Jensen walks up to him, throws him his gym-bag and grins.
“What’s this?” Chris asks, already growling with clenched teeth. He’s so not up for games now.
“What’s it look like? We’re gonna go to the gym and I’ll beat the shit outta you. Or are you too scared to dance?”
And that, folks… That’s when he falls.
~end~
(this might not be the last time I come to this storyline, there's still a lot to tell)
Without further ado, I present:
Title: Don't just stand there, say nice things to me
Author: marlowe78
Pairing: none (sorry!)
Rating: lots and lots of swear-words. So I guess PG 13 or over (but if you're 13, you should not be on my journal anyway!)
Word Count:~5.000
Warnings: language, physically abusive home-life (kinda?)
No beta (if anyone spots anything, tell me and I'll change it! Promise, no bad blood)
Disclaimer: All fiction, as in: not true! Title is from the song "Push" by Matchbox 20. Go, 90s!
Summary:: Romance-novels and chick-flicks will tell you that people fall in love only once and it’s so damn wonderful that everything’s sunshine and kitties and the love will last forever and ever.
Romance is wrong, though. It’s fantasy. People fall out of love all the time, it’s sometimes ugly and sometimes it’s just what it is.
And it’s absolutely possible to fall in love more than once.
The first time he gets punched, he’s twelve. Up until then, his dad never raised a hand against him; there had always been an invisible barrier that his dad hadn’t ever crossed.
It’s by far not the first time he’s seen a punch, though. Twelve years, and he already knew for six years how to call 911 “’cause my momma is all bloody”, and in school they’d learned that you call 911 when someone got hurt.
Twelve years, and he's already known for six-and-a-half years how not to call 911.
Because yes, his daddy is a hitter. But only when he’s upset. Only when the stress is too much. Only when things get too much for him and he can’t take it anymore. “Your daddy is a good man, and he loves us more than anything,” he hears while he fetches the peas from the freezer. “He just has a lot of stress.”
Stress, he learns, is a bad, bad thing. Stress is dangerous and makes his momma cry. Twelve years, and now he’s learned just how painful stress can be, and how long it takes for a bruised cheek to heal.
Since he looks weird with makeup, he just covers his bruises in a different way than his momma: The next day he goes out and calls Jimmy Ingerman a pansy in front of his friends and nobody notices the one bruise that wasn’t made by Jimmy’s fists.
After that, he learns to notice stress. He learns how to sniff it in a room full of people, how to gauge the severity of the stress-level just by the feel of the air. He learns when to stay clear of his dad and how to be so silent that nobody would even notice him.
He also gets in a lot more fights with the football-team.
**
When he is fourteen, he’d only been hit four times more. On his fifteenth birthday, though, he figures out that while he would be un-hit if he keeps quiet, his momma isn’t skillful enough and still gets punched a bit.
It’s not bad, though. It never is bad. She keeps telling him it’s not bad, and he tries to believe her, tries to not see the dark purple underneath the makeup. “He loves us. He’ll never do it if it wasn’t so bad at work. If we tell people, they will make him leave. I don’t want him to leave. Do you want your daddy to leave?”
When he’s fifteen-and-a-half, he realizes that his mom isn’t clumsy or insensitive to stress as he’d thought. No. No, she notices just fine. But instead of sneaking away and trying to stay out of sight and out of trouble, she goes and lights a fuse under the dad-bomb.
She never starts a fight, never. But she’ll drop a broom or accidentally touch his dad, just when the tension is so high that it could be cut with a knife.
It takes a long time for him to realize why his momma would be so stupid.
**
When he’s sixteen, there hadn’t been many stressful moments for nearly a year. Things are easy and mellow, and he makes himself believe that it wasn’t so bad, those years before, if now everything will stay nice and sane and painless.
He’s still sixteen when Bobby McGraw is murdered.
Bobby is - was? - a kid from his school. Maybe two years younger than him, maybe only one, but he was small and slender and had big, happy eyes and a smile that made people perk up when he was around.
In school, they’d learned about the childlike patterns, how big eyes and a round head made people and animals react with caring and how those things wake parental feelings. How people breed tiny little dogs in that pattern because people want to take care of such cute things.
Big blue eyes, a round head with a mop of blond curls and a bright smile didn’t help Bobby anything, though. They found him in a dumpster, all broken and bloody and well, his dad never said more than that, but he’s not stupid. Also, people talk.
It’s a tragedy, and he feels really sorry for the kid. He does, honest! But more than that, he feels sorry for himself and his mom. Cause his dad… his dad was there when they found the boy. Was there right after the call came in and was there when they secured the perimeter and took all the pictures and whatever it is they do when there is a dead kid in a dumpster.
His dad is very stressed when he comes home.
Dad’s also very stressed the following days, and though it doesn’t get physical right away, there is a lot of yelling and screaming involved.
It’s not his mom who lights the fuse this time, not a broom and not some clatter.
**
“Goddamn it Jolene! I am not in the mood for this shit, I really can’t deal with that now. He’s sixteen, he should know not to punch people just ‘cause they said somethin’ about some girl!”
“Right, ‘cause I shoulda learned at home not to hit people, right, Dad?” He’s seething, more anger than sense right now. Not because of the fight with Jimmy, his favorite enemy just because that guy is an ass of enormous proportions. No, he’s just so fucking angry, feels his skin itch and an urge to just … hit something.
“Son, you better watch your mouth here. I’m not in the mood for your teenage-drama-shit. I just had to talk to Bobby’s parents about who could’ve wanted to rape and murder their only child! So don’tcha give me any shit here!”
His mom gasps when his dad talks about Bobby, confirmation about what had been a rumor until then. “What, Jolene? Ya think that’s not what they did to that kid? Fourteen, he was fourteen and I had to see him and… I… I just wanna have some peace here, not deal with my own punk-ass ungrateful boy who’s too full of himself. All I’m askin’ of ya is some quiet-time and you can’t even do that for me?”
If he looks back to this moment later, it’s not really an unreasonable request. It’s really not too much to ask. But he’s itching for a fight, and not letting his mom be shouted at seems - in that moment - like a totally reasonable excuse. “Hey, leave her alone,” he yells. “Principal Miller said it’s gotta be you who talks ta him, it’s not her fault!”
“Boy…”
“No! Don’t ‘boy’ me, Dad! It’s not her fault that your work sucks and that someone murdered that kid, she didn’t do it and - “
The punch is really, really not unexpected. It’s been coming on for some time, and it’s a relief to finally get it over with. Normally, that would be the moment everything freezes and his dad would get all misty-eyed and sorry, he’d crawl away into a bottle and only emerge the next day, when everybody would pretend all is a-okay.
It’s not a normal day, though.
The next punch is a surprise, and the one after and the fourth one not anymore. He’s used to a lot - punches, kicks, bites and scratches - but those are all from kids his own age, a little older maybe. Not from his dad, not from a grown-up policeman who has been stretched to the limit like a rubber band for a week until today he snapped.
It’s a whole lotta different, feels like a whole lot longer and hurts a whole lotta more.
**
The most fucked-up thing is that he can’t even hate his dad. He can’t even say he’s a bad father. Hell, he’s a really good guy most of the time. His childhood had been fairly happy; there are a lot more good memories than bad ones. They went to the beach and drove to Disneyland, they drove to Grandma’s farm and went horse-riding for three-day-trips every summer. He grew up in sunshine and dust, learned to love the smell of hay and the apple-like tang of horses. When he looks back, ninety-seven days out of a hundred are good and normal - not perfect, because parents are just never perfect - but good.
He loves his dad, loves him like only a child can love someone, completely and with certainty. He’s never, not ever doubted that his parents both love him, too, and he’s so fucking proud of them. His mom works in a hardware-store and there is no tool she doesn’t know and nothing she can’t use. She’s smart with math and taught him how to cut a tree with a chainsaw but she also knows how to cook and how to be a mom. And his dad… his dad’s a fucking policeman, what little boy doesn’t dream of that? It had taken one look at his daddy in uniform to declare proudly in the stark conviction of all five-year-olds that one day, he’d “be a ‘liceman, too” and when his dad had swept him up in his arms, the world had been both bigger and safer than ever.
When he looks at his parents, what he sees is pure love and happiness. He’s her chosen husband, and she’s his chosen wife, and he knows that he hung the moon and she outshines the sun if you’d ask either of them.
He wants that kind of love for himself one day.
So no, his dad’s not a bad man. He doesn’t go around and start fights with his mom or with him; he isn’t some loudmouthing wifebeater who doesn’t know the good things he has in his life.
No, he’s really, truly a good man who sadly has a problem when it comes to working out tension.
And sometimes, he apparently has a problem when it comes to stopping what he started.
**
When the blows stop he realizes that he’s curled up in a ball in the corner, arms raised to protect his head. He’s crying snot and tears like he hasn’t in years, sobbing and long past speaking or begging for it to stop. He can hear his mom crying and sobbing, too, and he hears a hitch that must come from his dad but he can’t be sure. Doesn’t dare to look.
“Oh god… Oh god, no.”
“Matty…Matthew…” he hears her call his dad but still doesn’t dare look.
“I’m sorry,” he hears himself whisper, “sorry, sorry” and he can’t make himself stop.
Then, there is a thud as something heavy hits the floor, right in front of him. He flinches. “Son, I… God, look at me. C’mon, boy, just let me see…”
A hand is touching him, and he knows, he fucking knows that it’s his dad’s hand and that it’s over, the storm has passed and the bomb has been lit and blown all up. He knows that, but his body doesn’t listen to reason and just curls up tighter. There might have even been a whimper, but he’s not sure.
“God, I… Oh God, what have … I…”
“Matt, go to the bathroom and get the first-aid-kit.” His mom’s voice of steel, the one no-one disobeys. There’s no waver in it anymore, just plain certainty about the things that have to be done. His mom will save the day, he just knows it.
“Jo…”
“Now.”
His dad stands and leaves, and next it’s his mom in front of him, gently pulling his arms away from his face. She sighs when he looks at her, tear-tracks and red eyes the only clue that she’s upset. “You stupid kid,” she murmurs, but it’s not a real chastising. “You stupid, stupid boy.” Gently, she turns his head and peers in his eyes, makes him look first right then left, then right again. “Doesn’t seem too bad. You got a headache?”
He doesn’t know how to respond. Right now, nothing hurts, everything is numb around him. Maybe this didn’t happen? Maybe he’s dreaming.
“Jo.”
He forces himself to not flinch this time and looks at his dad who is holding the first-aid-kit out like it’s too dangerous for him to be near his wife and son. His knuckles are red and there is even a little blood on one of them but what hits him, really hits him, is the look in his dad’s eyes.
His strong, powerful, superman-dad is scared. Scared and lost and looks like a little kid, and he wants to hug him and tell him everything will be better. Everything will be fine. He even opens his mouth but sadly, that’s the moment the numbness decides to vanish and everything comes crashing down on him with a force that makes him moan and cry out in pain.
**
Things are never the same after that.
Good thing, his dad never raises his hand against anyone of them. No punch, no hit, not even loud words - not even when they would’ve been deserved.
Bad thing, everything is fragile now, everything's in shards around them.
When they meet in a doorway, Dad backs away and turns his head, averts his gaze. There’s shame in his eyes whenever he looks at him and he wants to shake his dad and scream and yell to come back, to please come back and be fine again!
He doesn’t, though, because he promised his mom.
After she’d cleaned him up that night, she’d taken him up to his bedroom. His stomach had hurt fiercely, worse even than his head, and he’d prayed that he wouldn’t have to throw up because that would really be a bitch.
She’d sat next to him on the bed, stroking his cheek absentmindedly and humming an old song.
“Mom?”
She’d sighed, then turned to him. “I can take you to the hospital. If you’re hurt too bad, we’ll go.” She’d hummed a bit more. “They will know it’s not just from a fight. There will be questions.”
“I won’t say anything, mom. Promise.”
She’d turned back to him and looked him in the eyes. “You can, though. It’s okay if you do. It… tonight,” her breath hitched a little “this is more than a bloody nose or a black eye. Matt… your dad…” Tears had been running down her face like she hadn’t even realized she was crying. “If you want me to, I will pack us a bag and we’ll leave. We can go to Grandma for a while, or move somewhere away. If… if you want, we’ll tell them all the truth, leave him for good. This… this isn’t right. Shouldn’t have happened, never. Never.”
He’d stared at her, at the pain in her eyes, the fear. And he’d known then that it wasn’t just pain for him, for what had happened to him - it wasn’t fear of her husband. No, it had been fear of leaving the man she loved, loved more than herself. And she would leave him, would move, would even got to the police and bring the love of her life to jail if that’s what her son thought right.
Later, he will realize that it should never have been his decision, shouldn’t have been put on his shoulders. Yes, he’d been sixteen and all, but he’d still been a kid! He’d still been too young to even understand the consequences. All he’d known then was that his mom didn’t want to leave, that she loved his dad and well, he loved his dad, too.
Later, he will know that even if she hadn’t meant to, she’d forced her son to decide between her own future misery and his recent pain and fear.
He’d shaken his head, then. “I don’t wanna leave, mom. I’ll … We can … I’ll be better, and we’ll be good.”
Later, he will realize that she’d left him in the believe that it was his own fault his dad had exploded, his own fault that he had to stay away from school for a week - his own fault that he’d pissed blood for three days and that he couldn’t eat anything but soup and cereal until his teeth had stopped hurting.
Then, though, he’d just been relieved that his mom stopped crying.
**
They catch Bobby’s murderer three days later.
**
It’s never the same. It’s never good again, everything’s weird and shaky and even though he has no reason to, has never seen his dad even raise his voice again, he can’t shake the fear. He’s afraid the other shoe will drop, afraid to make noise. Afraid that if he makes a mistake, the careful balance will come to an end and everything will shatter on the floor.
He has the feeling that his dad is afraid of coming home. Is afraid of him.
It’s really fucked up that he’d rather get punched again than live in this world of glass.
With no chance to fix things, he takes the first opportunity and starts his plan to become a policeman. Because even though his dad had problems with the stress of the job, there’s still nothing he wants more. He wants to be a good cop, wants to help people. Wants to be strong and tough and smart and good, wants his parents to be proud of him. Wants the camaraderie of colleagues that he’s grown up with, wants barbeques and inside-jokes, laughter and beer and easy acceptance.
So at nineteen, he packs his bags and leaves for college, goes to Florida for a degree in criminology and only comes home for awkward, stilted family-dinners on holidays. It’s painful to watch them tread carefully around him, and the visits get shorter and shorter.
**
They come to his graduation and when he’s sworn in. They are proud, he can see it in their eyes, and if the hug from his dad is too careful and the smile on his mom’s face a little too brittle, he just pretends not to notice.
At twenty-three, he gets his first long-term partner and learns to swallow his temper if he wants to stick this job out.
**
Somewhere between twenty-four and twenty-nine, he wins three national marksmanship competitions and comes second four times.
When he’s twenty-nine, he can’t stand the moisture anymore and applies to pretty much anywhere in the US just so he can leave fucking Florida.
They offer him a position at the HBT-unit in Chicago and he goes and buys a warm sweater and doesn’t look back.
**
In all this shit, throughout all the bad things and all the good things, he’s fallen in love four times.
First time is in Florida and he’s twenty-five with a big mouth and a knee-melting smile. He’s chasing some guy who’d made it his hobby to beat up gay men and when he tackles him to the ground and the asshole punches him on the chin, they have a brief but very satisfying scuffle.
It’s when he cuffs the asshole and his partner comes around the corner, huffing and puffing because well, honestly, Morris is way too fat for chasing anyone that he feels the pure joy and elation of being able to do this. Of being allowed to get one violent asshole away from the streets and being able to cuff this one asshole right there, show him that the law might not be perfect but it‘s still able to kick asshole-ass.
He’s fallen head-over-heels in love with his job.
**
Second time he falls in love is a lot more subtle, not as noticeable as the first. Still, he can trace it back to one exact moment in time - Thursday, 5th of May, around three pm. The news are just coming on when his car finally crosses into the city-limits of Chicago, long track from Florida has sucked the fun out of this road-trip a long time ago. His ass hurts and his knees creak and his fucking eyes are dry as dust. But all that is forgotten now that he sees her for the first time in all her glittering, cold-hearted glory. He’s fallen ass-over-teakettle for his city, for the smell and the wind and the cold and the air, the mood and the fucking food, and it’s not dulled at all, even five years later.
**
The third time, and maybe the most important one, is at Berkowitz’ summer-barbeque. She’s wearing jeans and a ripped tank-top, her hair in a two-colored pixy-cut - white tips over jack-black roots. She looks like a skunk and she laughs when he tells her, and he knows, just knows that he’s in trouble if this woman came here with someone else.
He never finds out if she did, but she left with him that night and she hasn’t yet left his bed. He’s crazy in love with her and would do fucking anything, would do cartwheels in the rain for her if she wanted him to. In full gear, in front of his team. He’ll ask her to marry him, one of these days, he already knows because this kind of love… well. He won’t let it just pass him by. And he won’t let it leave and won’t destroy it or taint it in any way.
**
The fourth time he falls in love, it’s completely surprising, absolutely unexpected and very, very painful.
Like with his city, he can pinpoint the moment though at the time, he doesn’t realize that that’s what it is, that’s what it will be.
He’s thirty-four and sitting in his favorite bar, watching the world over his fourth glass of beer and his sixth shot of… something. He’s old and young at the same time, feels like the world chewed him up and spit him out. He is too wired to go home and yet there is nowhere he’d rather be and he wishes not for the first time that he could talk to his dad about stuff. But he hasn’t seen his parents since … well, too fucking long. He feels too much like a stranger in their house, like he’s intruding on something and like everyone is waiting for him to destroy everything.
He sticks to phone-calls and e-mails.
Doodling in the moisture-rings from his glass, he morosely thinks that maybe this was always supposed to happen, that this kind of life has always been laid out for him ever since he was twelve.
With a weary sigh, he raises his glass when Jensen fucking Ackles slumps onto the stool right next to him, grabs his drink and glares right into his skull.
“Go home, Kane. Stacy doesn’t deserve to pour your drunk ass into bed.”
**
No, that’s not the moment. It’s just the prelude. Have some fucking patience!
**
“Shuddup and leave me ‘lone, Ackles. Newbies don’ get ta complain yet.”
“Ah, right. Because how could I possibly understand? Since I’m such a fucking newbie that I’ve done this fucking job just as long as you? ‘nother city doesn’t make it another job, asshole.”
“Fuck off,” he growls, because the itch is getting stronger underneath his skin. “Jus’ lemme drink and … jus’ fuck off.”
“I won’t. Cause, you know, I’ve seen this road. I fucking know this road. Your day sucked, I get it, I get it!”
And the worst thing is that Jensen probably really does get it. He’s not a kid and he’s not stupid, and he probably had to shoot a guy too. Just ‘cause he probably did it face-to-face doesn’t make it better, or worse.
“I get it, Kane, but this here,” Jensen points to the row of glasses on the counter “this leads only to misery. It leads to being hung-over, and it leads to one drink more to get the shaking out of your hands. It leads to losing focus and it will lead to losing people!”
He’s had enough, the itch is a burn now, crawling all along his neck and Chris can feel himself stiffening and that traitorous tick underneath his left eye. He pushes back from the bar to get distance because well… he doesn’t really want to satisfy his itchy skin. He really, really doesn’t. But the fucking drinks make him stumble and fucking Ackles grabs his arm and next thing he knows, he pushes back and grabs Jensen’s shirt, turns him around and shoves him far away with an angry snarl. “Don’t fucking touch me!”
“Hey, what the fuck is your problem? Get your panties untwisted, you asshole, and …”
He doesn’t let him finish, turns to walk away with shaking fists. But Jensen, the fucker, is too dumb to realize the hornet’s nest he’s stuck his foot into and he grabs his shoulder to turn him back around. Maybe he’s got a temper, too.
Doesn’t matter the reasons, it’s the right spark to light the fuse.
**
Down there on the dirty floor, amidst dust, carried-in dogshit and sticky residue from gallons of spilled drinks, among lost coins and dropped peanuts and very probably an unhealthy amount of spit and snot, he comes back to himself right before Jensen twists his arm behind his back in a very non-perfect but perfectly painful police-hold. He doesn’t know if he’s really crying or if there is blood running over his cheeks, but there is a vicious twist from Jensen so he has a perfect excuse if there are in fact tears.
“I got it, I got it. Sorry for the mess, we’re outta here,” he can hear above him and he doesn’t resist when Jensen grabs him and marches him outside. A few catcalls and swearing accompanies their track towards the back-door, and well, seems like he’ll have to find some other watering-hole from now on ‘cause a glance around reveals that there is a lot more furniture broken now than it was before.
Outside, the cold air hits Chris like a punch and sobers him quick and thoroughly. He groans, part embarrassment and part pain, and with that he’s shoved forward so unexpectedly that he falls over a trashbag, only managing to twist so he falls on his back and not his face.
Probably wouldn’t matter, there’s this stretched-out feeling around his eye and he can taste the blood in his mouth. He’s trying not to think too much about the agony that sits in the middle of his face, the one that used to be a nose.
“You done now, you asshole?”
Jensen doesn’t look much better than Chris is feeling, holding himself like there are some ribs or maybe kidneys giving him hell. It makes Chris feel like shit - this wasn’t supposed to ever happen. Hell, there is a fucking reason he drinks his brains away, he’s not doing it for shit and giggles.
“Really? Didn’t seem a lot like there was a plan from where I was standing.”
Chris groans. “Di’ a say that out loud?”
“Yeah. Now, gonna tell me what brilliant plan you had there, or do we have to go another round?”
There’s an awkward silence in the back-alley and the yowl of a cat has them jumping like little kids at Halloween.
“I’m not leavin’ here without some fucking explanation, Kane. I’m not watching you drink yourself to death. I know how alcohol hooks you if you’re not careful, and there was no care in the way you drank. I’ve seen my dad drink his life away, swallow his job, his family and all he had left. Dammit, Chris.” Jensen raises his hand to swipe it through his hair but stops with a pained hiss. He looks bruised and battered and for a second, Chris imagines how Stacy would look in his place. He shudders. “I don’t want to bury you because your liver shriveled up and quit, man. It’s not a nice way to go, not a fun thing to watch.”
“Yeah, well.” He’s not angry anymore. His skin, where it doesn’t hurt, is quiet and mellow, all the fire gone out like it hadn’t been there. There’s only shame left for losing it like that. For brawling in a bar like some two-bit hooligan and for hurting his partner who hasn’t even unpacked all his boxes. There’s really no pride left to lose. “Better’n going home right after and stew around ‘till ya yell and kick at your woman.”
Thing is, Ackles is smart. There’s not many dumb people in the squad, despite all the jokes, but Jensen’s really fucking smart. And Chris watches as he gets it, watches his eyes widen until the bleeding cut over his eyebrow makes them stop.
“Shit. Really?”
“You seen your road, I seen mine. ‘s not much of a choice, really.”
**
Jensen drives him back because the little Boy Scout had just followed him after their fucked-up job in the bank. Something must’ve tipped him off, cause Chris sure as hell doesn’t go to any of the police-bars when he gets this way. He’s got a temper-problem, not a lack of brain.
They don’t say anything, some song playing quietly on the radio to help resolve any lingering tension. Strangely enough, there isn’t much of that. They’re both silent but not moody, tired to their bones.
When they reach his street, Chris contemplates if he should thank him - and wonders for what. For beating the shit out of Jensen? It’s a bit too painful to make that one believable. For stopping him drink? He’s still not too happy about that. Maybe just for driving him home - would’ve been hard to get a taxi, as bloody as he is.
But there’s no need, it seems. Jensen just stops, turns to look at him and holds out his hand. “See ya Thursday, partner.”
Chris shakes it with relief and makes his way up the stairs, hoping to sneak in without Stacy noticing.
He catches himself smiling when he catalogues all the bruises over his body in the mirror. Ackles packs one hell of a punch, is one hell of a fighter. Chris might kinda like this guy.
**
Five weeks later, right in the middle of the hostage-negotiations, a faulty gas-line explodes and takes out three hostages, the culprit and two policemen, one of them from their unit. It’s a mess, everyone’s a mess, and at the end of the day, Chris can feel his heartbeat pulse in the tips of his hair, trying to bury the itch by glaring his locker into submission. It’s not working well. That’s when Jensen walks up to him, throws him his gym-bag and grins.
“What’s this?” Chris asks, already growling with clenched teeth. He’s so not up for games now.
“What’s it look like? We’re gonna go to the gym and I’ll beat the shit outta you. Or are you too scared to dance?”
And that, folks… That’s when he falls.
~end~
(this might not be the last time I come to this storyline, there's still a lot to tell)