isaysimplewords (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
isaysimplewords) wrote2010-10-02 06:33 pm
isaysimplewords) wrote2010-10-02 06:33 pm
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OOM: Conversations With Dead People - (Milliways) Halloween 2010
This time, he understands what's going on right away. A dream that isn't a dream, a meeting place between worlds more tenuous than Milliways. A way to make peace with those he has lost.
He knows whose turn it is this year before he even looks, and when he does look, and sees the familiar figure in the wheelchair he remembers so vividly
(It had shifted slightly under them as Cal swung his weight into it, settling himself neatly into place facing his uncle, cradling Grahame's head not ungently in his hands. Grahame had been too thin for that chair by then. There was plenty of room for Cal.)
he's pretty sure that the outcome of this meeting isn't going to be very peaceful.
He knows whose turn it is this year before he even looks, and when he does look, and sees the familiar figure in the wheelchair he remembers so vividly
(It had shifted slightly under them as Cal swung his weight into it, settling himself neatly into place facing his uncle, cradling Grahame's head not ungently in his hands. Grahame had been too thin for that chair by then. There was plenty of room for Cal.)
he's pretty sure that the outcome of this meeting isn't going to be very peaceful.
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Cal is still in bed; he remembers having fallen asleep just a moment ago. Grahame is across the room. As far away from Cal and Cal's bed, he notices, as it is possible to get.
He wonders if that's Grahame's choice or his.
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It's a well-worn technique of his, brusque dismissal to cover for vulnerability. Worn to transparency at this point, perhaps, at least to those who know him, but he holds on to it. It's all he has.
He has yet to look up.
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Cal has imagined this moment more than once, meeting his uncle for the first time since both their deaths.
("Please, Cal, I'm begging you. Look. Look, I'm on my knees, is that what you want? Is it? Please, Cal.")
Anyone could come through the door at Milliways, at any time. Just because he has yet to meet anyone from his world doesn't mean it will never happen. There has always been the possibility of seeing Grahame again, and he has always dreaded it.
Maybe it's just the dream, but right now he's calmer than he'd thought he'd be.
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He doesn't answer right away; he's never been as good at repartee as he'd like to be. Not when the other person knows him nearly as well as he knows himself. Violet could always silence him, and Cal found the right weapons against him too in the end. He knows all too well how neatly Cal can take him apart now, if he chooses.
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(The dream is kind enough to have him fully clothed, far more than the minimum he tends to wear to bed even in the winter. It's easier on both of them this way. If Grahame ever looks up.)
"Where - ?" he begins.
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Grahame's interruption is sharp, and he finally does look up as he speaks.
His eyes meet Cal's, gray locking into blue, and they stare at each other in silence.
(If you don't believe me I don't blame you. It might be easier for both of us if you didn't.)
Sentimental garbage.
This changes things, you know.
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No.
This isn't about the upper hand, not anymore.
Deliberately, Cal looks away first, breaks the spell, allows his uncle to keep what remains of his dignity.
Grants him mercy.
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(Mercy, compassion, pity, and lies
Condescension, shielding of eyes)
He prefers unveiled cruelty.
(Dire impatience, spiteful asides
Ridicule, shame)
It all finishes up the same in the end, anyway, and a knife to the heart is so much faster. But he gave up his right to object to any treatment Cal might care to subject him to long ago, didn't he?
"Don't you want to know why I'm here?" he asks abruptly. "The sooner I've done my business, the sooner you can wake up and be rid of me."
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He gets up and goes over to it, pretending not to see the way Grahame tenses at his approach.
"Okay," he says as he sits. "Yeah. Shoot."
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Grahame will just have to remind him that nothing will ever be right. Not between them.
(No, he told Cal once, I don't like you. As a matter of fact, I despise you.
Cal had asked if there was a reason. It was years before Grahame gave him anything resembling an answer.)
It's true what they say, about the line between love and hate. Grahame's not sure that line ever even existed for him. Not with Cal. I despise you, he thinks, and takes something out of his pocket.
"Didn't you ever wonder where this went?"
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It's a watch, silver, the shine as bright as if it were still new. Cal never wore it much, just kept it safe in his room. He didn't want to risk the wrong person noticing it and taking it away; it was too precious to him for that. He looks at the face, then flips it over to look at the back, at the familiar engraving there.
Love, Tina.
He'd discovered its absence shortly after discovering that she had disappeared from his life. He'd told himself that it was for the best, anyway, that he didn't need the reminder hanging around. There had been too much to do to dwell on trying to figure out why Tina had left.
"How did you - ?"
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"She told you (http://isaysimplewords.livejournal.com/6480.html) that I owed her," he reminds his nephew. "What did you think she meant by that? Or don't you think at all? I was led to believe you had taken up the habit. I must have been mistaken."
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Because Tina was right. For the role he played in her death, he does owe her. That's what this visitation is. Once he is done here, his debt will be repaid, and that grim link between them will be gone.
(He owes Cal, too, more than he can ever hope to repay, but this isn't for him. The dead can deal between themselves to their own satisfaction, but debt owed by the dead to the living can never be wiped away.)
He looks back to Cal, meeting his eyes, and doesn't look away again as he speaks.
"Your mother found that watch while they were cleaning the drugs out of your room," he says. "I had the locks at Tina's apartment changed, and when she came running to the house looking for an explanation, I told her that you were sweeping the garbage out of your life. She didn't believe me until I gave her the watch and told her you'd wanted it returned to her."
He smirks, just a little, because destroying any chance at Cal's forgiveness he might have had is worth the sheer visceral pleasure of landing this one last and vicious blow.
"That never even occurred to you as a possibility, did it? You're even more of a fool than your father ever was."
(He doesn't deserve forgiveness.)
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He can't.
He can't meet his uncle's triumphant gaze, either. He looks down at the watch instead, staring unseeing at the elegant scrolling text of the engraving.
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(nothing more important than the upper hand!)
that he'd almost forgotten what it was like.
"Speaking of whom," he continues, because while he's at it he may as well, he officially has nothing to lose and no reason to keep this little secret any longer, "you may want to ask that Bar of yours about a man by the name of Bobby Barrel. Make sure you get a picture."
Cal is, after all, the spitting image of his father.
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By the time he forces himself to look up, he can pretend Grahame never gave him this one.
(You don't like me very much, do you? he'd asked Grahame once.
No, Grahame had said, I don't like you. As a matter of fact -)
"Is there a reason?"
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The easy answer of years ago rises to his lips.
(A reason? Don't limit yourself, Cal.)
But instead - instead he looks into Cal's eyes and says,
"You read that letter. You tell me."
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There's no one else in the room.