ненормальный
harrisxbby:
To an outsider looking in — hell, even to Justin looking in — it never made much sense why he and Dairen had formed a kind of friendship of sorts. Mentorship? Whatever it was, it had its awkward and uncomfortable moments, but it was times like this one that made it one of the most important relationships he’d ever had. Dairen had a way of seeing and processing things differently than Harris did and sometimes granted, that drove them both crazy, but sometimes he needed the help to see outside of himself. And sometimes he just needed someone he could go to and word-vomit all the things he tried to deny, hide, and ignore away and know that in doing so he was still safe and not at risk of upsetting or losing any relationships. It was like a creative process of sorts, with Dairen being his rough first draft before he took it to Justin or Liz.
Briefly halting his pacing, he hugged his arms tighter around his middle and watched Paris buzz under him as he turned the thought over in his head a few times. It was a conundrum of sorts. Dairen and Justin swore up and down there was some kind of remarkable strength in him. Privately, he thought if they’d known how deep his despair went and how desperate he’d felt in those moments that they’d change their minds, but now Dairen’d offered an angle of it he hadn’t considered and couldn’t immediately dismiss. As low as he’d gotten (and admittedly still occasionally got) — he’d been ready to move sun, earth, moon — whatever it took to keep Justin from dying in that basement. There had been an unfamiliar feeling of steel chorusing through his body and while he could argue that was a heat of the moment thing, that didn’t negate the fact that he’d done it. He’d picked up a gun and he’d shot their worst nightmare and then put himself in-between Justin and more danger, ready to pick off anything and everything that came to threaten their independence and future again. And truth be told, if someone were to suddenly drop down on him right now - that steel would be back. Despite the fear, the paranoia, the despair — there was a quiet determination in the back of his head that simply knew he’d be ready instantly to fight to the death again - be it his or his would-be captors - there would be no going quietly. “I hadn’t thought about it like that.” Harris said finally, looking away from Paris to regard Dairen for a moment, belatedly realizing that he was searching for some kind of change. Like the fact he had been a killer and would willingly be so again would affect Dairen’s offers of safety and family and he’d lose some of that poorly concealed concern aimed his way so often these days. “I’d mentioned movies and books a moment ago and I think…I think I have it wrong in my head. It’s grey, isn’t it? Strength. And bravery. I felt like desperation, or hopelessness or despair would cancel it out. Make it null and void, but it doesn’t, does it? I wasn’t thinking very clearly but I still did it. I…I’d started to get us out. I thought … I don’t know why I thought it, but I had set a higher standard for things like strength and bravery. That it was pure and without anything like doubt or uncertainty or fear but that’s silly. If those kinds of stories were real, they’d feel both sides -all sides - too, wouldn’t they? The heroes. And the villains. And well, you. You and Justin. Cohen. And everyone else I’d looked up to.”
That whole realization left him a little winded and he turned his gaze back to the city for awhile before testing out a soft, “I was strong.” outloud, followed by an even quieter. “I am strong.” Maybe…maybe they weren’t that full of shit. Maybe he was strong to still be standing here, to still be trying despite well, everything. Maybe strength didn’t mean ease, or success, maybe it was just grit. His perfectionist side often narrowed things down to black and white and it skewed his understanding to a point that it’d begun to hinder him without his realizing it. Strength didn’t have to be successful to be valid. It just had to be. “I am strong.” he repeated, not at all surprised by the note of awe in his own tone.
It didn’t exactly crush or stop the flood of panic and pain that talking about Marty had brought back, but it did give him just enough ability to stand there and listen. It was tempting to bolt, to physically hide from any of this, but what good was that going to do, really? Eventually, he was going to have to talk about it and talking often started with just listening. If Justin hadn’t confirmed the boat thing with his own story, Harris would have thought it was just a dream. Well, and the whole ending up in New York when previously in Australia thing. There was nothing really concrete he recalled from that time anymore, it was just a haze of pain, nausea, dizziness and blackness. Vaguely he recalled a woman and stars but that was probably a fever dream or something. Shaking the thoughts off, he found he was able to relate to the disorientation waking up after the basement and the confusion that being free seemed to continually bring. Inwardly, he had to smile a little partially because the 20 minute checks were just a thing when Justin was gone apparently and mostly because they’d somehow gone from uncomfortably ignoring the fact he’d stumbled down from Justin’s bedroom in his clothes to Dairen just assuming they were happily sleeping in the same bed together and not batting an eye. “Merci.” he said quietly, once Dairen was done with his roundabout explanation. His fingers tightened on his arms but he was able to turn his back to the city and fully focus on Dairen.
“Everyone after Ellie died promised me with time it’d get better. And I’d demand how the hell could it get better because there was no changing the fact she was gone. I get it now. What they didn’t want to tell me. That the pain would fade because the wound would fade. I’d move on. Her memory would be sweet, but no longer … as consuming as it felt. It’d feel wrong to say to someone freshly grieving that the grief would fade because the all consuming importance the loss felt at the time would fade as life continued. It feels cold. But it makes sense.”
As far as Marty and his haunting beyond the grave — that made sense too. Marty’d personally made their life hell nearly daily for months - it’d take more than a few weeks for his body and his brain to accept a new routine. “Thank you for saying what no one else would. For making the concept of time being the best healer into something I could understand. It felt like a cop out. Like something people just said ‘cause they couldn’t say or do shit. But I … I get it now. I get how it could help with all of this.”
Breaking into a small smile at the mention of breathing exercises, he just shrugged and motioned to the patio with a wave of a hand. “I imagine I have about as much success with breathing exercises as you do. Grounding’s a big one for me. Just uh, taking in where and when I am with as many senses as I can manage. S’why I usually have the iPod with me, sound seems to work better than anything else. I don’t always trust sight or touch, smell only works when there’s something strong to smell, and well, taste. Taste is pretty useless in my opinion but I guess if you had like a ginger candy or something real strong that could keep you focused in the here and now.” As far as what he’d been trying to ask, for something tangible - “Maybe the Russian’ll help. French, when you guys learn it. Something that’ll jar my head as much as the music does.”
Falling quiet, he turned away from Dairen again, mind a little overwhelmed with how much he’d now been given to think about and process. Eventually, he turned back around and drew a little closer to the table. “Can I ask….” He shouldn’t ask. Dairen was already doing far more than Harris deserved but strong. So he plowed on. “Three things? When you talk to Vlad about physical therapy, can you maybe ask him if we could work self defense into it too as I build up to that? I know we’re safe now and there’s nothing to prepare for, but I’d still feel better knowing I could protect myself, even if it’s just from some pickpocket on the street or something. Two…I uh, I haven’t really been sleeping. Can you or Vlad help with that? Please? I think … I think I’d like to nap until Justin’s back if he’s still got the diazepam or anything. And lastly - this one’s the doozy so prepare yourself…” Harris couldn’t help but smile a little before finishing with a quiet, “I could really really use a hug, pretty please.” Ellie, Cohen, and even Blythe for awhile there had always been super tactile. So too, had Luna, Jer, Coral, Keaton, Ryder — there always was someone pulling him into a hug, or ruffling his hair, or demanding cuddles so it was strange to be in a dynamic now that touched only to patch up wounds. He hadn’t realized until recently that that lack of touch had made him feel more isolated and alone than he really was. So baby steps.
For a second, Dairen watched Harris freeze and stare over the balcony, and he was sure that he’d finally gotten through to the boy. That, or Harris was struggling trying to understand Dairen’s logic. As much as Dairen hadn’t known him as well when he and Justin were younger, he still had gotten the obligatory invitations to his graduation with the announcement of his being valedictorian that all of the guards’ parents and their protected received. He wasn’t sure where in the contract it had been that everyone involved with the agency had to be friends, or at least in contact, but he had been there, usually drunk, for a considerable amount of it. Or some of it, anyway. He’d only gone to the graduation because Jeremy had been in the same graduating class, but it didn’t diminish the fact that Harris was a genius. That being said, for as brilliant as Harris had always been, Dairen struggled with trying to get him to understand things that made perfectly logical sense to him, when he wasn’t anywhere near the top of the intellectual scale. But then, maybe that was the problem. The things that made sense to him weren’t intellectually logical, they were street-smart logical. The kind of logical that came with knowing the outcomes and results of war, not chemistry equations and compounds. Maybe Harris just needed a bit more prodding and explaining to be able to understand that kind of logic, just like Dairen would need a hell of a lot of guidance to understand basic chemistry. Or something like that.
And maybe he’d finally hit the right equation. or variable, or whatever the fuck the chemistry equivalent of the right words in this situation was. Because when Harris turned back to look at him, it was with some kind of understanding. Dairen huffed out a short laugh and shook his head. “Boy, if you’d just explained that logic to me weeks ago, I could’ve saved us both a lot of headaches,” he said lightly. “Bravery isn’t the absence of fear. It’s doing the right thing, it’s fighting, it’s doing whatever you have to do, in spite of the fear. If you weren’t afraid of anything, you wouldn’t need courage to pull through. And if you didn’t have weaknesses, you wouldn’t need strength. Strength is overcoming weaknesses, not being void of them. This isn’t black and white. And you probably hate hearing that as much as Justin does, but it’s true. It’s all grey area. We all struggle, and you find the strength to pull through. We’re all afraid, and you find the courage to overcome it. Hell, I’m proof why you shouldn’t have set some higher standard for strength and bravery. You think I have both those things, but I’ve told you how often I’ve struggled. You watched me slip and fall. Five year chip down the drain. There’s nothing pure, or certain or doubtless about it. About me, or Justin, Cohen, no one. It’s all shades of grey, some darker than others.”
His shoulders dropped, like some weight had fallen off, and it had. The feeling that he needed to carry Harris, to watch and be certain, to protect him from himself, it fell off at Harris’s realization. At his wide eyes and awed words. It was still there, the need to protect him, but it wasn’t as dire. It wasn’t the kind of protect-him-because-he-won’t-protect-himself kind of feeling. He was starting to come back. He was starting to see some light, some reason to pull through. Or at least he was starting to see that he was strong enough to pull through. It was only a single step, but it was the most important one. “Yeah, you are,” Dairen agreed quietly after Harris repeated it a second time, louder, seemingly in awe of himself and his own strength. “About damn time you realized it too,” he couldn’t help but add with a warm, half-smile.
As Harris explained why he could now see how time healed wounds though, Dairen shifted uncomfortably. “Yeah, it is cold,” he muttered. “And to be honest? If this was right after she’d passed, and the wound was still days, weeks old? I wouldn’t have said it like that. I would’ve given you the vague ‘time heals all wounds’ bullshit that everyone else told you. And I didn’t really mean for you to connect it back to Ellie now, but, yeah. People told me the same things after my brother and parents died. Time will make it easier, and it did. But not in the way you want it to. You get to point where you find out good news, or just a stupid story, and you want to tell someone, and theirs isn’t the first name you scroll to in your phone. That was when I realized what people meant when they said that I just needed time. I needed time to relearn that habit, to call someone else first, and not start to dial my brother’s number. He’s not any less my brother, and Ellie isn’t any less your sister. The memories are still there, the pictures, and everything. But the habits, the muscle memories, those change. And when those change, it’s easier to move on. People don’t tell you that right after someone passes away, one because it’s cold, but also because you’d fight it. You’d make it a point to scroll to her number first, before going back to Justin’s or Luna’s or Jeremy’s.”
As cold as it felt to say, Dairen was at least glad that it helped. It was the one part of tis unexpectedly close relationship that they both needed; to be able to be blunt, and tell each other what no one else would. Because as many times as Harris yelled at him over sleeping pills, or Dairen got pissed at him for repeating the same tired arguments for not sleeping or not fighting, they’d still end up right here, because no one else would react in the same way to the blunt honesty that was offered during their conversations, or would offer the same blunt honesty in return. Dairen listened, just nodding as Harris talked through what helped and what didn’t He didn’t have much to offer, more just hoping that making Harris go through out loud what helped would remind him when he needed grounding what he needed to do. He sat up a bit straighter, gesturing for Harris to continued when he asked for three requests. “Of course,” he said immediately to the first. “It doesn’t matter what situation you’re in, even if you’d never been a part of the agency and TC, self defense is never a skill learned in vain. I can ask him for— Diazapan? Yeah, no problem. Is that going to knock you out for a full eight hours though? Not that you don’t need it, just wondering if it’s a good idea to take it now or if you should take it tonight.” He raised his eyebrows at Harris’s lead-in to his last request, and almost laughed when he actually heard it. A smile broke through but he covered it quickly and nodded with mock seriousness, “I think I can manage that.” He let out a short laugh and stood up, crossing the few steps to Harris so he could pull the boy into a hug. As much as Harris might need Dairen to point out that he is strong, and that he’s allowed to be, maybe Dairen needed him for the opposite just as much, to point out that there were more ways to care about family than just his usual tough-love approach.
