The yard is dark, with the large shadowed shapes of everything, after he opens the gate and he heads toward the porch and the door without missing it but without seeing it, too. The looming mass of house that just needed to hold one more thing in its eternally straining seams. His father's blood, and secrets. All three of his mother's lives, and her lies. The seldom appearances of Mary and Joan. The last phone call with Cath. Still not full, it would get to add this to its walls, too. Danny.
Steve dug in his pocket for his own keys and unlocked the door. He pushed the door open into the empty house, stepping in through the doorway, and leaving it for Danny to manage on his own. Getting through and closing. He was a grown ass man and Steve was already finding it impossible to find some spot in this room Danny hadn't been in, leaned on, sat, stood and dancing around in while waving his hands and explaining something, fallen into a pile of others during holidays and bbqs.
It was slipping away as fast as it could be remembered. Real once, but not anymore.
Like Saturday morning pancakes. Working in the garage on the Marque with his dad; helping his mother around the house; Mare sliding down the hallway in her socks. His mom in this room, right here, red faced and older, crying and yelling. Lying. So many lies he had no idea what was and wasn't. Especially after Wo Fat. Again, and always. Promising to be honest, and vanishing into the wind.
Cath's dark eyes, and laughing smile. The easy way they challenged each other, without having to push. The way she crinkled her nose either when something was too weird or when she called him on his shit. It'd been weeks since he'd found even a single stray long brown hair in his bed, the laundry, the shower, caught up in the piles that got swept from the floors.
At least he understood hers. In a way no one else in Five-0 seemed to at all. Danny least of all.
After signing your life away for six, or eight, or twenty years to what someone else needed you do, there was an immense freedom in finding something you did. Something that needed you, as much as you needed it. The way Steve felt about Five-0, even when it didn't compare to the work of being a SEAL. Good, but not the same good. She was where she needed to be, doing what she needed to be doing. Making the world a better place, like they'd all been called for.
Yeah, maybe it hurt. Yeah, it wasn't with him. But he at least got it. None of them had been completely his own fault. Sure, he hadn't tried to force himself into his Dad's life after any of his graduation's. Or Mary's. He'd tried with his Mom. And Cath. He might have done a piss poor job of knowing what grace was, or always remembering. But he'd tried. He could say that much for himself no matter how they'd ended.
This. This was all on him. This was him becoming the hands of the mess, as he found a light switch and flicked it. Sudden, warm yellow light suffusing the single wide room as he looked back at Danny. His lungs hardening as he to tried drag sensible thoughts together, to justify, even to himself, what he'd need to convince Danny of. That it wasn't a problem. That he hadn't even thought about this in years. Not really. Not except for those times. When he couldn't help it getting everywhere. When desperation, or relief, or near destruction seemed to drive both of them.
That it wasn't like that. Danny didn't have to worry. He would never touch him like that again. But he could be better. He could not be any of those things. Or whatever else Danny didn't want him to be.
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branchandroot
(no subject)
Date: 2015-10-21 11:17 pm (UTC)The yard is dark, with the large shadowed shapes of everything, after he opens the gate and he heads toward the porch and the door without missing it but without seeing it, too. The looming mass of house that just needed to hold one more thing in its eternally straining seams. His father's blood, and secrets. All three of his mother's lives, and her lies. The seldom appearances of Mary and Joan. The last phone call with Cath. Still not full, it would get to add this to its walls, too. Danny.
Steve dug in his pocket for his own keys and unlocked the door. He pushed the door open into the empty house, stepping in through the doorway, and leaving it for Danny to manage on his own. Getting through and closing. He was a grown ass man and Steve was already finding it impossible to find some spot in this room Danny hadn't been in, leaned on, sat, stood and dancing around in while waving his hands and explaining something, fallen into a pile of others during holidays and bbqs.
It was slipping away as fast as it could be remembered. Real once, but not anymore.
Like Saturday morning pancakes. Working in the garage on the Marque with his dad; helping his mother around the house; Mare sliding down the hallway in her socks. His mom in this room, right here, red faced and older, crying and yelling. Lying. So many lies he had no idea what was and wasn't. Especially after Wo Fat. Again, and always. Promising to be honest, and vanishing into the wind.
Cath's dark eyes, and laughing smile. The easy way they challenged each other, without having to push. The way she crinkled her nose either when something was too weird or when she called him on his shit. It'd been weeks since he'd found even a single stray long brown hair in his bed, the laundry, the shower, caught up in the piles that got swept from the floors.
At least he understood hers. In a way no one else in Five-0 seemed to at all. Danny least of all.
After signing your life away for six, or eight, or twenty years to what someone else needed you do, there was an immense freedom in finding something you did. Something that needed you, as much as you needed it. The way Steve felt about Five-0, even when it didn't compare to the work of being a SEAL. Good, but not the same good. She was where she needed to be, doing what she needed to be doing. Making the world a better place, like they'd all been called for.
Yeah, maybe it hurt. Yeah, it wasn't with him. But he at least got it. None of them had been completely his own fault. Sure, he hadn't tried to force himself into his Dad's life after any of his graduation's. Or Mary's. He'd tried with his Mom. And Cath. He might have done a piss poor job of knowing what grace was, or always remembering. But he'd tried. He could say that much for himself no matter how they'd ended.
This. This was all on him. This was him becoming the hands of the mess, as he found a light switch and flicked it. Sudden, warm yellow light suffusing the single wide room as he looked back at Danny. His lungs hardening as he to tried drag sensible thoughts together, to justify, even to himself, what he'd need to convince Danny of. That it wasn't a problem. That he hadn't even thought about this in years. Not really. Not except for those times. When he couldn't help it getting everywhere. When desperation, or relief, or near destruction seemed to drive both of them.
That it wasn't like that. Danny didn't have to worry. He would never touch him like that again.
But he could be better. He could not be any of those things. Or whatever else Danny didn't want him to be.