http://echoofaperson.livejournal.com/ ([identity profile] echoofaperson.livejournal.com) wrote in [community profile] trans_92011-07-30 11:08 am

See How My Garden Grows [Very Open]

He hadn't done much laying around as a teenager. He'd always been too busy, one social event to another.

After the Yeerks...well, Temrash had less love for being lazy than Iniss did, but neither of them were really set on protracted periods of inactivity. And there was always something Sharing related, or feeding related, or just...something. Rank play had been a major time suck in his youth, and needing to be somewhere every three days made planning anything else a bit of a suck.

He'd flopped down on the hill next to the garden he had spent so much time losing time in, one hand gripping Bobby's leash to keep the dog from running off, but eyes closed and body relaxed.

Too much stuff was happening, lately. He wasn't used to keeping up with it anymore. Jake was back and Sam was dating Xander and Dean and Kaylee had broken up. He wasn't even sure how to handle half of that, much less all of it at once.

No wonder the garden looked so well tended, the neat rows gave him something to do, something to think about, something that made perfect sense because plants needed like...two things, water and weeding, and they weren't much on demanding an emotional investment beyond that.

Bobby shifted, licking his hand and resting his head on his shoulder, watching the chickens and their chicks poke around nearby.

Why couldn't life just be this simple?

[identity profile] vissernone.livejournal.com 2011-08-03 05:19 am (UTC)(link)
She rubs his back, reminded viscerally and suddenly of that time she held Marco, despite her broken bones and burned body, before asking - begging, practically - to be reinfested. She can practically smell the blood, her own body infected and decaying, her son's salty tears.

But of course, it's just Tom's shampoo, and the garden, and the faint scent of chicken feed.

"It seemed like the right thing to do," she says quietly. She won't tell Tom it was wrong. Won't tell him that every moment she regrets it. She should have escaped with the Animorphs, fed them information, fought from outside instead of waging futile, hopeless war within. But it had seemed right.

How can she tell Tom the only major decision he's made so far was the greatest mistake?

So she doesn't.

[identity profile] vissernone.livejournal.com 2011-08-05 03:43 am (UTC)(link)
"I know, honey." She doesn't pull away - if anything she just draws him a bit closer. No point in regretting the past. No point in encouraging Tom to second-guess himself, when absolutely nothing can be gained from it. She could only crush the fragile shreds of autonomy he's swept together.

It's never really over. She knows that. But for his sake she has to have hope, because he thinks she's strong, and nothing is more discouraging than watching your role models buckle under the weight of your same problems.

[identity profile] vissernone.livejournal.com 2011-08-07 12:44 am (UTC)(link)
She nods, slowly, understanding. "You can take as much time learning to stop as you need to. I still haven't learned. It's not a matter of strength, but patience."

It's a tricky line to walk with Tom. On one hand, she wants to be his comrade in hurt, able to sympathize and remind him that he's not crazy or lost or irreversibly, untouchably damaged from him time with Iniss. To show him he's not alone. That she's the same as him, that it's normal.

On the other, she wants to make him believe, and believe for herself, that they can and will get better. Slowly, maybe, but that they can.

She's been free longer than he was even a host.

She doesn't know what to say, so she rubs his back.

[identity profile] vissernone.livejournal.com 2011-08-07 05:18 am (UTC)(link)
"Is that what you think, that we only are worth our own bodies as long as we're of some use to others?" Of course, it's an easy thing to think. It's pretty much what the Yeerks ingrain into you for years.

"I did use you in arguments. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time, but it was probably...I was probably being spiteful. I do that. A lot, lately. I'm sorry." She's sincere.

She lets him go, letting her hands linger enough that he can return to her embrace if he wants, but so she's apologizing with her body as well as her words. "We all have the best intentions, but that's why people have sayings about the road to Hell. But you - we - we're of some worth. Something, at least. It's just hard to find reasons to believe that sometimes."

[identity profile] vissernone.livejournal.com 2011-08-10 02:19 pm (UTC)(link)
"If our worth is the value others place on us, then yes. You are wrong. Because I value you, Tom," she keeps her eyes on him while she says this, even if he's avoiding eye contact, but then shifts her vision away to give him a reprieve from her gaze.

She bites her lip so hard she winces at that. It's a difficult line to tread, wanting to protect her son, the single most important person in her world, against what she knows is better for the safety of everyone. Any step away from viciously defending Marco feels like a betrayal. It feels like she's going to ask her smart, brave son to put a Yeerk back in her hands. Finally she sighs and says "I can't hold his paranoia against him, Tom. Not if he's not going to hold my injuries against me."

She reaches over and pets the dog. "I can't say I won't. You deserve better than mealy-mouthed promises that may not keep. But I don't want to keep contributing to this toxic climate for you. You're more than his ghost, you know."

She looks around at the garden, lip tucked in her teeth, rolling her thumb over her finger over and over.