|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Nov 27, 2016 2:29 pm
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Nov 27, 2016 2:42 pm
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Nov 27, 2016 2:52 pm
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Nov 27, 2016 3:07 pm
|
|
|
|
Lawrence knew that the alcohol was only going to make things more difficult, already cursed with a layer of self control as thin as tissue paper to begin with, but he was livid and needed to rant at someone, Melvin fit the bill for it.
"I don't care if you are in the mood." he said briskly, walking a little unsteadily ahead, before rounding on the other man, eyes narrowed, looking like he was on the verge of summoning Butch. "Who said you could just take my child and spoil him? Who said you could simply displace me, show me up? Didn't you think there was a purpose to what was going on? It was deliberate."
He clenched his single hand impatiently. "That sneaky manipulative little brat has you in the palm of his hand, he got you to take him out of the jungle and to spoil him rather than ever figure anything out off of his own back. You have just reinforced about a year of laziness I was working to undo."
He didn't bring up the panic it all elicited, the gulf of eligibility between them both narrowing enormously. Mikael had gone from being a non-issue to an actual threat within the space of an afternoon. "How dare you?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Nov 27, 2016 3:18 pm
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Nov 27, 2016 3:42 pm
|
|
|
|
There was something about Lawrence that went blank as Melvin turned on him, even the anger seeming to melt away as if he'd forgotten how to maintain an angry expression or front. How dare the other man tell him how to deal with his family. What did he know? He'd given him the whole place and he'd done nothing to earn his place, he'd given him Mikael and it had taken till now, when it was all falling apart to finally act.
"I'm calm." he said icily.
But that calmness didn't last, it was one thing to be told he wasn't a good father, Melvin couldn't understand the complexity involved in raising a child like Mikael who would use neglect as a weapon and who would manipulate anyone stupid enough into doing everything for him.
"And he should have known those things. Everyone else does. No one took me aside and told me how to live my life." He'd had to deduce it all himself, making too many mistakes to count, mimicking people and sometimes imitating the wrong things. He'd learned slowly and horribly because he'd had to but Mikael never had.
However, it was Melvin's last comments that were like a slap in the face, striking him in a way that made him teeter a small bit physically.
He smells better than you right now.
It was such an idle mean little comment but it struck into the very heart of everything that Lawrence hated about Mikael and hated about aging. It hurt. It hurt in a way that was so harsh it was almost physical and Butch in his thoughts snarled that they'd been hit so they should hit back.
He didn't question the impulse and summoned his claws with that same blank expression. "That was...that was really..rather rude." he said, giving Melvin a look that was hollow and almost sad. "What a horrible thing to say."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Nov 27, 2016 4:02 pm
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Nov 27, 2016 4:13 pm
|
|
|
|
Lawrence stayed put, still looking at the glowing claws as if he couldn't even really see them. Part of him wanted to attack, some other part felt like even that would be too much effort, too much wasted frustration on someone who wouldn't understand what he was trying to say.
His gaze snapped up from the claws to Melvin when he mentioned family life.
"I was raised." he said coldly. "With the constant assertion that unless you are independent, unless you seize life yourself, without help, without being coddled, that you are subhuman." And this was the truth, his father had always hated him for his weakness and dependence, seeing the strangeness as a personal insult. He'd been told a hundred, a thousand times that he was more effeminate than his sister, that he wished he could afford to put him in a home. He wanted to avoid that for Mikael, and removing the dependence on others was the first step.
Melvin was being cruel, he realised, as cruel as it got anyway. "I drank some wine." he said coldly "It is a festive day."
He took a single step in the direction of Melvin, still seeming to be deliberating attempted murder. "I am still here. I don't.. I didn't mean to create a replacement." And the edge of despair in the word was something he couldn't keep out of it.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Nov 27, 2016 5:21 pm
|
|
|
|
Melvin stood there, not taking a step back. Not stepping down. Something was going on and the way Lawr was treating himself didn't settle right. The man didn't talk of his family from his childhood, but just the one he had with his wife and son. It was a piece of something that had been missing to an even bigger puzzle, and he wasn't about to let it drop.
So he moved closer and looked him square in the eye, and the last part of his words, the way they slipped and thinned, put him on edge. He knew Lawr didn't know, and that made him angry to just assume the worst. "I never said that. You are Lawr. He is Mikael. He isn't your replacement. We left so he could become healthy and lean to brush his damn teeth."
He took deep, controlled breathes through the anger that always had a tight lid on it. Over that control he had managed, to bottling up his emotions, to telling himself anger never solved anything, all these years. He wanted to choke him. Hit him. Tell him to ******** off forever despite wanting to throw him down and make him his again in all possible ways.
"No one can replace you, but you can't stand here and say you don't want me to find someone. You told me that at the tent. YOU replaced ME. I'm still here too, and you didn't give two shits about that. That you wouldn't care how I would feel with someone else. Being with someone else. LOVING someone else. So you can't stand here and try and twist me into being faithful to you when you let me go. If this is about you and me, then we can talk about that. But this isn't about Mik BEING you. I did love you for years only to have my emotions and mind torn to pieces time and time again to have to rebuild it into something I wish I had, that I was hopeful I could find, only for you to dismiss EVERYTHING about us."
Saliva flickered into his hand, but the weight of her brought him back down, and he dismissed her, his fist squeezing about her pen.
He took a breath. "About your dad." He moved back to the subject at hand. "He was a ******** a*****e. No father should ever call their children subhuman, and for him to force you into struggling and to treat love and kindness as a crutch only ******** up a person. He didn't do you any favors and he sounds like a real piece of work for him to treat you that way."
And he moved closer to look him in the eyes, his expression wavering from anger from before to something softer, more empathetic. "YOU don't have to be him. You have a chance as a dad to be the father you WISH you had. Someone who knew what was right - and that being human is helping your family, caring for them, loving them, offering them help and guidance so they can succeed and go further than you one day. So they don't have to struggle and face those pains and hardships you had to go through. To learn from you. Like every parent should. We all want to learn from each other...."
He sighed, feeling as if he was lost again in the void trying to find some loose string that needed tieing to make a connection for Lawr so he could find his way to a door that wasn't open to him before. That was always there but he could never get to.
"You wanted him to find out things on his own and he did. He did what anyone would do and that's to seek out information. I gave it to him, and he learned. It's no different than him watching a video or him reading it from someone in a book. That isn't being lazy. That's being smart. People seek out help and knowledge when they don't understand so they can succeed in life and not feel so.....so damn lost all the time."
He rose his hands, gesturing all around him to the world all around them before letting them drop to his side.
"Didn't you do the same thing? Didn't you come to me asking if you could maybe try to get to something close to love? Even if you didn't think it was possible, that you wanted to try? That didn't make you subhuman, Lawr. That's human. To want. To seek help. To seek the kindness and warmth of another person. To want to learn and find knowledge and find yourself."
And it tore at him, because Lawr hadn't found that with him after all. Their trial was over. Mission: Unsuccessful. Time for a new class. A new teacher. A new something.
"Or was.....that just a manipulative lie too?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Nov 27, 2016 10:44 pm
|
|
|
|
In spite of his comment about being replaced, Lawrence hadn't considered for a second anything to do with being replaced by Melvin. He meant in general, in the world, in the larger universe. Melvin didn't understand, he defended it by saying he'd only been teaching Mik to brush his teeth, but that was a life skill that Mikael almost certainly already possessed or if he didn't it was something he could have picked up eventually after being left without it long enough. Instead he'd gotten what he wanted, someone else to hold his hand and coddle him like he wasn't actually nineteen.
As always he was oblivious to Melvin's emotional state, caring only about his own restless irritation, of the fact that he wanted to hurt the other man to make him stop saying the things he'd been saying, to solve all of his problems with ten long talons.
"I want you to find someone." he said coldly. "Someone." He'd never thought he'd have had to address Mikael, but the way the present conversation was leaning he wanted to at least clarify that much. "Definitely not Mikael though, that would be completely disgusting." It would be more than that, but he didn't want to even begin to address any of it when he felt like this.
The mention of his father immediately got his hackles up again, somehow angry to even hear someone talk about him, talk about him like they knew who he was and who he was. He'd been to psychiatrists as he grew up, amongst all the other doctors and so many of them had wanted to know about his family. He'd learned to lie every time. "He just wanted strong, human children." he said. "He wanted normal. There's nothing wrong with that, animals kill their young who are wrong, a waste of resources. He couldn't kill me, though he probably wishes he did. I am not him and I don't have anything I would wish instead." He couldn't imagine a father that was anything other than his experience, couldn't imagine someone who was caring or helpful, all of those roles were tended inadequately by the mother in his experience.
"He uses people." he said. "He used you and you can tell yourself it was an education but it was just learning how to be like you, to be like something you want. Its...it was.. it was different from me." and again the sharp edge came into his tone.
"I wanted that." he said. "I did. But I couldn't and still can't give you the things you need. Rodney's easier, he constantly says love is an action. It's a doing thing, it's something I can watch and replicate, it's nothing to do with emotions. With you there needed to be emotions, there needed to be more than that. That's too hard Melvin, too hard for what I am. What did we even become towards the end? Was that a relationship? I don't even know any longer."
He couldn't help but look a little lost and hopeless.
"I'm going to lose my whole family and stability over this." he said. "I didn't even mean for it to happen, Rodney won't be happy either, there were a lot of things I'm not sure I can give him without a persona. I tried not to manipulate you both, I tried to be honest with you from the very day I told you the truth about Rin."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Nov 28, 2016 4:52 am
|
|
|
|
He didn't move, kept himself solid as he braced himself. Disgusting. He already knew that. He already knew what Lawr or anyone else would think of him for his impulsive actions. It couldn't be unwritten, and so there was no point in mentioning it now. They had nothing now. Admitting anything would only make things worse somehow. Then again, maybe it would be best if Lawr absolutely hated him, but with those claws out and him drunk, that wasn't smart for the man's control.
That secret could die like their relationship.
It was Lawr's warning that had him second guessing. It always had him second guessing. For a year he was always wondering, was any of this real? Was any words or emotions he felt created by someone else being untruthful to get something? If Mik was Lawr's son, and he was at least by blood, did he inherit his legacy of manipulation or was this just a manipulation to keep Melvin away?
"I guess it's funny then. After all this time I'm still so easily manipulated.....like some ******** idiot." Maybe it was all he was good for.
Had....there been any truth in anything anymore? Was that all he was good for?
Somber, he wrapped his arms across his chest, not able to meet Lawr's disappointment in what they had been. "I don't know either. Before, I really wanted to help you and thought we were making some progress, but I think that was just me fooling myself in the end. I never was any good figuring out people, but I kinda thought that might give me a leg up understanding you. I thought we were kinda the same. Then when you said it meant nothing..." His voice clenched at the harsh memory in the Infirmary where all his reality was torn once again by the sharp-angled blonde. "...maybe it was just that convenience. Maybe we were just using each other to keep some normalcy in our lives. At least we couldn't hurt anyone if we were just hurting each other."
His eyes traveled up Lawr's slender length, his own memory photographic of each part at every angle, and went to his eyes once more. "Maybe I was still buying time to find something that could bring you back to me and make the lies true."
But it hadn't.
"We already lost the family long ago, Lawr. We lost it when we were lying to ourselves that things were working out. Playing pretend to hold things from falling apart. You being with Rodney in the tent .....I couldn't ignore that. It said that you already were done with playing that game. It said that our try at love hadn't worked out."
And he had to admit it. After all this time.
"I never gave you what you needed. We tried. It didn't work out. Now all we can do is move on. Maybe Rodney is the key to finding out what you need. Just....just don't fake it for him. Don't do that persona. If love is action, then act yourself. Not like someone else."
And to this he had to turn. "We need to find what we need now. What we couldn't give each other. Families change, Lawr. Kids grow up. People grow apart. New families are built. People remarry." The last part was bitter.
"I guess it means we're just.........just done." It was over. "Maybe his actions will say love to you where mine didn't." Years of it - just dust.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Nov 28, 2016 9:07 am
|
|
|
|
Lawrence gave Melvin another hopeless look, stranded helplessly in a mire of complex desires and drives that he couldn't even begin to reconcile. He wished it was as simple as violence, simple as striking Melvin until he was changed into something manageable, hollowed out into a memory he could control and no longer able to hurt him.
But it wasn't that easy, not at all. He knew if he lashed out now that it would only alienate everyone from him further and that in the end it might not even be a fight he could win, Melvin had come a long way from the broken figure he'd found wasting away in a greenhouse and even in his darker times as now made him feel truly small. He represented more than Lawrence could articulate and he knew more than ever now that his departure would be the end of the family he'd built. Melvin was human, a sensitive and warm being who had clear values that had endured everything he'd managed to do to him. He had survived and continued to survive.
"I changed with you." He said. "I found some stability, a life, I gained the confidence that I could at least appear human. Before you I was free-wheeling. He looked at his missing hand, a very tangible symbol of the lack of self preservation he'd developed in pursuit of America. "The very fact I was able to let you be free was and still is extraordinary. I have never managed it with anyone else." But he knew everything was slipping and as he lost people from his innermost group of confidants he lost something of himself, like a vampire slowly losing its long term source of blood. They had been his supply and Melvin foremost of them all, trapped together by the horseman infestation.
"I don't.." he said faltering and uncertain. "I don't want to start over." It felt like a curse to him, his entire life trapped in cycles of endlessly repeating mistakes, finding a family only to be forced through his own prolonged ignorance of basic human needs to destroy it over and over and over. "You can take it all away from me" And for the first time possibly in their entire relationship it seemed that Lawrence was afraid of him, even with those brutal talons summoned, his posture not its usual sleek and confident line. "It had meant nothing to me because I don't understand anything truly, convenience is all I have, superficial."
His eyes widened a little at hearing that the family was over, that everything now rested on Rodney's shoulders, that he was the one who would need to carry the weight of destruction and brutality which had been spread out over a whole family unit. "But he's so fragile." He said, suddenly remembering being a child left in charge of something frail and beautiful and being unable to do anything other than to break it. "There...it needs to be someone else."
The claws vanished and he looked away, Melvin even had the favour of his son. "I've done it too many times Melvin. I know how it will go. I know how it will end. I didn't want this to end." And again where he wished with all his might there would be sadness, deep cathartic sorrow, there was only nothing and a numb sense of something that was missing. "He's probably better off with you."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Nov 28, 2016 9:30 am
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Nov 28, 2016 9:47 am
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Nov 28, 2016 10:03 am
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|