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Life After (ficlet, post-series)
Aug. 11th, 2017 02:21 pmSome days are better than others. Some days Clancy wakes up early in the morning to the smell of pancakes, the sound of his mother's voice humming a song traveling faintly all the way up to his room from the kitchen downstairs. The sensory combination always makes him feel warm, brings back memories filled with laughter, younger years before when she'd made time for him despite her grant submissions and research deadlines, moments of mad joy stolen away from nannies and swung squealing with joy into the sunlight. Years before the awful plague hit, and before everything went bad. She'd always made time for him. Not like his father. Those memories are always sweet, and none of them contain his father. Always too busy for his family, always focused on his career, his campaign more important than his son. Those moments a dark cloud of resentment bubbles up from somewhere deep within, resentment for a man who couldn't even be torn from his office when his son got sick.
That's why memories of those years of his childhood are a bit hazy, his mother says. That he'd been sick, he'd almost died like those millions of other children when IAAN swept the country. She'd almost lost him, she'd said. He remembered very little. Pain in his head, a feeling like a violin string being plucked, the warmth of a pair of arms, being so lonely and lost he could scream. But he also remembered the operation, remembered the soothing sounds of her voice, remembered healing and eventually helping her to help others. It's what he was always meant to do. Help.
**
Some days are worse than others. Some days, there's a dark cloud hanging over him, obscuring everything. Sometimes it's shaped like his father. He doesn't like to think about his father. Better to think about his mother, whom he loves. The mother who had fought to save not only her son, but thousands of others, to give them a way to survive the horrible seizures and side effects that IAAN left its survivors with. Clancy still gets migraines sometimes, a deep, piercing pain that starts just behind his eyes and grows into an ache so pervasive it takes days to fade completely. Those days he's always moody, a mercurial creature of irritation and frustration, quick to anger over nothing at all. Those are usually the days his hand acts up the most, fingers of his right hand tingling like he's losing feeling in them. That's his father's fault, too, he knows. His mother told him so. An assassination attempt. He'd saved her, pushed her out of the way and taken two bullets for her. He doesn't remember that at all, but then, shock can do that, and he'd been shot twice, hitting his head on the way down. Trauma can make you forget. Those days his fingers wander over scar tissue in his shoulder, feel the dull ache in the bones of his leg. He doesn't know what he'll do, if his poor excuse for a father ever comes crawling back. He doesn't know what he'd do without his mother.
**
Some nights are better than others. Some nights his head doesn't hurt at all, and his fingers feel fine, and all the thoughts and ideas in his mind, all his plans for a future shining bright ahead of them, lay themselves at his feet like a yellow brick road only he can see. Some nights he stays up late reading a fascinating paper on world economics and the rebuilding of America's industries and falls asleep easily, sleeping soundly and dreaming of a better future for his country, of healing the world, if he dreams at all. Some nights are filled with possibility.
He can do so much for the world. He's only twenty. Still young. Once when he was a child, he'd been expected to follow in his father's footsteps as an attorney, then into law, into the political arena. He'd always wanted to be like his mother, instead. To understand people. Now, he thinks maybe there are other ways to do that. Other ways he can help. He can see so clearly just how the pieces should fit together. He can look at people and see where they belong, what suits their talents and temperaments the best, and he's always right. His mother says he's always been a good judge of character. Maybe he can help this way, help them rebuild. After all, he's a survivor of that awful disease, too, isn't he? He's one of the lucky ones. He knows better than any of them what all of this feels like, and what they can still become. They can build a better world. He's seen it.
**
Some nights are worse than others. Some nights he falls right to sleep and straight into hell, into nightmares of pain and fear, of his body strapped to a table and a rubber bit between his teeth, of surgical instruments and the cold, blinding lights of an operating theater in his eyes. It's always that light that's more than just a light. It doesn't just blind him, it exposes him, lays him open bare for the world to see. Not just the world, them, those tall, looming, laughing shadows, calling him names, telling him just what they think of him, how little, how sad, how silly. Sometimes they are adults, and sometimes they are children, but always he is smaller, and always he is helpless. There's a leather belt around his head and a leather belt against his legs, thin lines of red-hot pain, a pinching in his head, screams he clenches his teeth against, he can't--he won't--
If I scream, then he'll--
There are other nightmares. Dreams of fire, of a building burning around him, a fire inside him that's terrifying, but not as bright as that awful light. Everything is burning. Sometimes the dreams are earth instead of fire, the distant dull thunder of an explosion, and he can't breathe, there's dust choking his lungs and debris on his legs, and he can smell the hot sour sick stench of fear, and he doesn't know if it's him or if it's whatever it is he's in, struggling to find a surface that may as well be miles away.
All of these dreams are sharp and immediate and filled with anxiety and gut-wrenching fear and a helpless anger that feels so foreign to him it's almost alien, but none of them are as bad as the quiet dreams.
It always starts with the sound of a young boy crying, low, quiet sobs. It isn't him, even though he's crying, too. He learned a long time ago how to cry without making any noise, sometimes even without tears. He'd never sob like that, his father had made sure of that. It's not him, but the sound still makes his chest ache, his ribs locked too tight around lungs that are rubbed raw by the very air they're breathing. It's the sound of a boy that's all alone, who's always been all alone, and all Clancy wants to do is tell him he isn't alone. The sound is so close. He's right there. But when he opens his mouth, the part of his brain that tells him how to make words is silent, his lips dumb and rubbery. He can't make any sound at all. The sobs get stronger, and this time there are other sounds with them: ragged gasps of breath, horrible pauses of sound that he knows mean there's pain happening, something so bad there's no room for air at all in the sound, and he holds his own breath, waiting for the boy to start breathing again.
He can't talk, but he can reach out, he thinks, and he tries, he tries, but he can't move his arms or legs, everything is belted to the table, that damned cold metal table, and there's no horrible light overhead but at this point he wants the light. He needs the light back, because he needs to see--if he could just see--
That's when the words come, whispers in the dark, that same soft, lonely voice as the sobs, but those continue, too, constant. We'll get out of here, some day, right? it says, and Clancy, what are you doing? and Clancy, you promised, and even though he can't remember what exactly he promised he has the sudden sickening realization that the voice is right, he promised something, he promised and then he didn't do it, whatever it was, he didn't, and that's why this boy is crying. He did this. The sobs grow louder, the whispers grow louder, and he's begging silently, he's crying now, too, whooping gulps of air, but just as he thinks the whispers are going to burst his eardrums they start to grow quieter. The sobs, too, but it's not the kind of quieter that comes with calm but with distance. He's leaving. The crying boy is leaving--only no, he thinks, feeling the rattle of wheels underneath him, it's him leaving. He's leaving, and the crying boy is staying, and he's screaming now, Clancy, don't leave me, don't, don't leave, don't, you promised Clancy--
He always wakes up then, gasping, lips silently forming the words I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, over and over again. There are tears on his cheeks and his heart is pounding in his chest and his head feels like it's going to split in two, and there's a scream locked in his throat so tight he's trembling with it. He can't remember, he can't remember but he did something awful to someone so important, he was so important and he can't even remember, there was a name, he should remember, what was the name??
His mother always knows when he's had those dreams. The others don't bring her as often as they used to, and that's fine. He's an adult, he can handle a nightmare, they gave him pills that he's often (but not always) too proud to use, and there are other ways to deal with bad dreams. But these ones always bring her to his bedside, pushing him gently back down to his pillows, wiping away the sweat on his forehead with a cool, calming hand. She brings him water, tells him not to worry, that it's just a bad dream. They're all bad dreams, but this one especially. She says she'll stay with him until he falls asleep again, and the thought is still comforting, but those nights he always lies awake, thinking of a whisper in the dark and a face he can't quite remember and a name that's always on the tip of his tongue. They're just dreams, he tells himself, but the words always sound hollow in the dark.
By the morning, he always believes it.
That's why memories of those years of his childhood are a bit hazy, his mother says. That he'd been sick, he'd almost died like those millions of other children when IAAN swept the country. She'd almost lost him, she'd said. He remembered very little. Pain in his head, a feeling like a violin string being plucked, the warmth of a pair of arms, being so lonely and lost he could scream. But he also remembered the operation, remembered the soothing sounds of her voice, remembered healing and eventually helping her to help others. It's what he was always meant to do. Help.
**
Some days are worse than others. Some days, there's a dark cloud hanging over him, obscuring everything. Sometimes it's shaped like his father. He doesn't like to think about his father. Better to think about his mother, whom he loves. The mother who had fought to save not only her son, but thousands of others, to give them a way to survive the horrible seizures and side effects that IAAN left its survivors with. Clancy still gets migraines sometimes, a deep, piercing pain that starts just behind his eyes and grows into an ache so pervasive it takes days to fade completely. Those days he's always moody, a mercurial creature of irritation and frustration, quick to anger over nothing at all. Those are usually the days his hand acts up the most, fingers of his right hand tingling like he's losing feeling in them. That's his father's fault, too, he knows. His mother told him so. An assassination attempt. He'd saved her, pushed her out of the way and taken two bullets for her. He doesn't remember that at all, but then, shock can do that, and he'd been shot twice, hitting his head on the way down. Trauma can make you forget. Those days his fingers wander over scar tissue in his shoulder, feel the dull ache in the bones of his leg. He doesn't know what he'll do, if his poor excuse for a father ever comes crawling back. He doesn't know what he'd do without his mother.
**
Some nights are better than others. Some nights his head doesn't hurt at all, and his fingers feel fine, and all the thoughts and ideas in his mind, all his plans for a future shining bright ahead of them, lay themselves at his feet like a yellow brick road only he can see. Some nights he stays up late reading a fascinating paper on world economics and the rebuilding of America's industries and falls asleep easily, sleeping soundly and dreaming of a better future for his country, of healing the world, if he dreams at all. Some nights are filled with possibility.
He can do so much for the world. He's only twenty. Still young. Once when he was a child, he'd been expected to follow in his father's footsteps as an attorney, then into law, into the political arena. He'd always wanted to be like his mother, instead. To understand people. Now, he thinks maybe there are other ways to do that. Other ways he can help. He can see so clearly just how the pieces should fit together. He can look at people and see where they belong, what suits their talents and temperaments the best, and he's always right. His mother says he's always been a good judge of character. Maybe he can help this way, help them rebuild. After all, he's a survivor of that awful disease, too, isn't he? He's one of the lucky ones. He knows better than any of them what all of this feels like, and what they can still become. They can build a better world. He's seen it.
**
Some nights are worse than others. Some nights he falls right to sleep and straight into hell, into nightmares of pain and fear, of his body strapped to a table and a rubber bit between his teeth, of surgical instruments and the cold, blinding lights of an operating theater in his eyes. It's always that light that's more than just a light. It doesn't just blind him, it exposes him, lays him open bare for the world to see. Not just the world, them, those tall, looming, laughing shadows, calling him names, telling him just what they think of him, how little, how sad, how silly. Sometimes they are adults, and sometimes they are children, but always he is smaller, and always he is helpless. There's a leather belt around his head and a leather belt against his legs, thin lines of red-hot pain, a pinching in his head, screams he clenches his teeth against, he can't--he won't--
If I scream, then he'll--
There are other nightmares. Dreams of fire, of a building burning around him, a fire inside him that's terrifying, but not as bright as that awful light. Everything is burning. Sometimes the dreams are earth instead of fire, the distant dull thunder of an explosion, and he can't breathe, there's dust choking his lungs and debris on his legs, and he can smell the hot sour sick stench of fear, and he doesn't know if it's him or if it's whatever it is he's in, struggling to find a surface that may as well be miles away.
All of these dreams are sharp and immediate and filled with anxiety and gut-wrenching fear and a helpless anger that feels so foreign to him it's almost alien, but none of them are as bad as the quiet dreams.
It always starts with the sound of a young boy crying, low, quiet sobs. It isn't him, even though he's crying, too. He learned a long time ago how to cry without making any noise, sometimes even without tears. He'd never sob like that, his father had made sure of that. It's not him, but the sound still makes his chest ache, his ribs locked too tight around lungs that are rubbed raw by the very air they're breathing. It's the sound of a boy that's all alone, who's always been all alone, and all Clancy wants to do is tell him he isn't alone. The sound is so close. He's right there. But when he opens his mouth, the part of his brain that tells him how to make words is silent, his lips dumb and rubbery. He can't make any sound at all. The sobs get stronger, and this time there are other sounds with them: ragged gasps of breath, horrible pauses of sound that he knows mean there's pain happening, something so bad there's no room for air at all in the sound, and he holds his own breath, waiting for the boy to start breathing again.
He can't talk, but he can reach out, he thinks, and he tries, he tries, but he can't move his arms or legs, everything is belted to the table, that damned cold metal table, and there's no horrible light overhead but at this point he wants the light. He needs the light back, because he needs to see--if he could just see--
That's when the words come, whispers in the dark, that same soft, lonely voice as the sobs, but those continue, too, constant. We'll get out of here, some day, right? it says, and Clancy, what are you doing? and Clancy, you promised, and even though he can't remember what exactly he promised he has the sudden sickening realization that the voice is right, he promised something, he promised and then he didn't do it, whatever it was, he didn't, and that's why this boy is crying. He did this. The sobs grow louder, the whispers grow louder, and he's begging silently, he's crying now, too, whooping gulps of air, but just as he thinks the whispers are going to burst his eardrums they start to grow quieter. The sobs, too, but it's not the kind of quieter that comes with calm but with distance. He's leaving. The crying boy is leaving--only no, he thinks, feeling the rattle of wheels underneath him, it's him leaving. He's leaving, and the crying boy is staying, and he's screaming now, Clancy, don't leave me, don't, don't leave, don't, you promised Clancy--
He always wakes up then, gasping, lips silently forming the words I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, over and over again. There are tears on his cheeks and his heart is pounding in his chest and his head feels like it's going to split in two, and there's a scream locked in his throat so tight he's trembling with it. He can't remember, he can't remember but he did something awful to someone so important, he was so important and he can't even remember, there was a name, he should remember, what was the name??
His mother always knows when he's had those dreams. The others don't bring her as often as they used to, and that's fine. He's an adult, he can handle a nightmare, they gave him pills that he's often (but not always) too proud to use, and there are other ways to deal with bad dreams. But these ones always bring her to his bedside, pushing him gently back down to his pillows, wiping away the sweat on his forehead with a cool, calming hand. She brings him water, tells him not to worry, that it's just a bad dream. They're all bad dreams, but this one especially. She says she'll stay with him until he falls asleep again, and the thought is still comforting, but those nights he always lies awake, thinking of a whisper in the dark and a face he can't quite remember and a name that's always on the tip of his tongue. They're just dreams, he tells himself, but the words always sound hollow in the dark.
By the morning, he always believes it.
