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thejusticelounge2012-04-28 06:12 pm
bossymarmalade) wrote in thejusticelounge2012-04-28 06:12 pm
Entry tags:
forever catchup
The pool on the Watchtower was Olympic-sized and *then* some, since it had to accommodate for all kinds of Leaguers of varying sizes, densities, and compositions. It had different sections for temperature and chlorine and oxygenation control, but Ollie generally opted for plain old turn-your-hair-green chlorinated. He liked swimming. He’d never seen the point of running for fun or even exercise; wasn’t there enough running in the course of a normal patrol to start doing it for kicks?
Swinging his arms in front of him, Ollie headed out of the change room and to the pool, only to find that he hadn’t been the only one jonesing for an early-morning swim. There was a red head moving steadily along in the water, and although there were plenty carrot-tops up in the Tower, only one of them belonged to him. In a manner of speaking.
“Hey, Roy!” he called, waiting for Roy to stop and turn around before taking a running dive into the water.
Roy woke up earlier than he wanted to today. His mood was iffy at best and he decided it would better to swim it out than let Lian wear him down before he’s ready.
He’s managed to navigate his way around the place pretty nicely. Finding the pool and squeeing just slightly at the size of it. How cool was this?~
Roy decides that not jumping right in would be an insult to this establishment and this pool and everything he stands for. So stripping of his shirt, he decides he’ll leave his jeans on and deal with the wet fabric later. He’s under the water, his hair sticking from the top as he swam. Coming up though, he caught Ollie’s voice and turned around in the water, frowning.
Oh great. It’s Mr. Avoidant. Wading in the water, he watched Ollie jump in and Roy sighed, swimming over to him. How had he not noticed the other before? Was he here first? Probably. Roy did pick this hobby up from him.
“…Hey Dad..”
“Nice morning for a dip, huh? I couldn’t —” Ollie wiped water from his face and slicked his hair back, frowning. “Are you wearing *jeans* in the pool? What the hell? Roy, you *know* roughly three-fifths of all the people on this station, lots of whom are guys around the same size as you. You couldn’t rustle up ONE of these guys and borrow a pair of trunks?” Ollie swam in a slow circle and came back to where he’d started, facing Roy. “Or at least swim in your shorts?”
Roy smirked, shrugging as he wadded in the water and watched Ollie circle him like a shark. “Well see, I came in here just checking stuff out and couldn’t resist. Besides, if I was in here with just my shorts, I’d be in a pool naked with you…” He was staring at the other closely for his reaction. “And we wouldn’t want that now, would we?”
Ollie scowled, making splashes in the water with his hands as he treaded. “Roy, that’s not funny. I thought we—” He cut himself off abruptly and swam away, waiting until he was up against the side of the pool before finishing, “— you still could’a found somebody to lend you something.” He was being unreasonable, somewhat, considering that people with fur and scales and clothing made of energy or alien polymers swam in this pool. But he wasn’t responsible for those people. And before he could even stop the words from leaving his lips—
“I brought you up better than to wear jeans into a pool, dammit.”
He bit the inside of his lip, cursing himself. If Roy didn’t take *that* one off to the races, Ollie’d consider himself lucky.
Roy protected himself from the splash of water in his face, ducking and watching as Ollie practically ran away. Seriously. This was what they were going to fight about? Rolling his eyes, Roy decided that ignoring the old man would make this go by a lot faster. Swimming and floating lazily on his back he shrugged in the water, even though he knew his father couldn’t very well see.
But then he had to go and make that qwuip.
“Excuse you?” He practically sat up and he glared. If his glares could kill. Ollie would be dead. “Brought me up better? Do you even know what that fucking phrase means Ollie? Cus I’m sure as hell certain that what you fucking did, was not bringing me up!”
“Oh, here we go.” Ollie kicked off from the wall and swam to the other side of the pool, turning to glare at Roy. “When are you gonna get over it, Roy? There’s only so much fucking apologizing I can do. There’s only so many times I can prostrate myself on the forgiveness of Roy Harper and hell, all his friends and hell, all MY friends for that matter, before it becomes pretty fucking hollow a gesture.
“So tell me, Roy.” Ollie swam to the middle of the pool where Roy was furiously treading water. “Tell me for once and for fucking all what you want, what I can DO to get you to stop acting like I brought you home and kept you in a dog crate. I know I wasn’t any kind of great parent to you, dammit, but it’s been years since then and things have changed and I’m trying! I’m *trying*!”
“Yeah well, I don’t want your sorry to come out of judgement from others!” He growled angrily, trying not to get to riled up because then this could have easily turned into a splashing game of anger and frustration. But Ollie’s gotten ridiculously close for a shouting match and he hates this. Hates when Ollie asks him now of all fucking times to explain himself.
“Really?! REALLY?! You want to fucking do this right fucking now? When you fucking feel bad about everything? When you have people breathing down your neck for you to fucking do something about it you frustatingly cockeyed buffalo!” And this is going to turn into a splashing contest because he swats a wave of water into Ollie’s face, glaring at him defiantly.
“You’re trying at all the wrong times, Dad. Being condescending and inconsiderate isn’t any different than when you ignored the shit out of me!”
The wave of water caught him off-guard, and Ollie spent some time sputtering and spitting before he could answer. “Well jesus, Roy, could you send me a schedule or something so I know just when IS the right time to try with you? Goddammit, boy! You’re like a cactus full of bees half the damn time!”
Roy made an inarticulate noise of rage at that and Ollie turned, swimming with long deliberate strokes to the side of the pool to haul himself out. He sat down on the edge with his legs in the water, watching Roy glare at him from the middle. “If we’re gonna talk about this, then let’s at least talk. Instead of yelling in the middle of a goddamn pool.”
Roy was satisfied that Ollie was choking in a really ‘I’m just angry’ kind of way. He’s just glaring, folding his arms because “I’ll show you a fucking cactus,” he muttered under his breath and watched Ollie swim away to sit up on the edge of the pool. You just don’t want to get splashed again, he growled internally before dipping into the water and swimming towards the edge near Ollie.
He came back up when he reach a few paces away, hefting himself up in one go without jumping for it and scooting just a little bit closer to his father. He kept his bad mood tight, waiting for Ollie to start reprimanding him. If he did though, he’d push him back into the water as revenge.
“So.” Ollie looked over at Roy, who was seething visibly — tense all through, hair dark with water and bristling at the back of his neck, jaw working. “So. Let’s just take it as a given that I was a terrible father to you when you were growing up and I was never there for you when you needed me. I’m sorry about that, Roy. I wish I could’ve been better for you — for a lot of people, really — but I don’t know what I can do about all that now.”
Roy’s not expecting that. But then again, he doesn’t expect a lot of things most of the time. And he’s trying, just a little bit to be more…open about this. Dick said he needed to give his Dad another chance, to let him apologize at his own pace. But a large part of Roy feels like it’s too late. Mostly because he’s just so angry it happened.
Huffing he grit his teeth and gave Ollie another snippy glance before opening his mouth. “Damn straight you were shit. And stop. Just…Stop doing that. Making it about everyone else. Can we pretend for five seconds that we’re the only people in the world right now, because if you bringing up that shit, about being better for other people and loving them more and other crap, I’m going to deck you. Hard. In the face.”
That was … new-ish. Not that Roy was so greedy for Ollie’s attention, that’d been obvious since the first time they’d met, but … for him to put it that way. With so much clarity, instead of the usual sputtering rage.
“Okay,” Ollie said. “You ‘n me, Roy, nobody else.” He swished his feet in the water for a moment. “It was like that a lot of the time, wasn’t it? I mean, all the training, all the hanging out at the house, all the stakeouts and patrols — even when I dragged you around to parties and stuff, you were the one I took with me! You were, y’know, the one I *wanted* to take with me!
“And I dunno if all this is enraging you more, or anything, but christ, Roy — you’re my son. My eldest, and the one I’d trust to take care of the rest of the family if anything happens to me. I haven’t done a great job taking care of you, but somehow you managed to grow up into an incredible young man. On your own.”
Ollie stopped there and rubbed his eyebrows. He’d told himself these things over and over a million times, but they still hurt to say out loud, unvarnished. Unpolished truth.
Watching Ollie talk and unload was like watching an owl mauling the shit out a field mouse. Roy’s not so sure who’s the owl and who’s the mouse yet because Ollie’s always been his dad. He wasn’t shit when he brought Roy everywhere. He wasn’t neglectful when he let Roy tag along, even when he was planning on getting some sex for the night. What bothered him was that Ollie crashed and burned in all the wrong ways. Avoidant in a way that always pushed Roy out.
And the more he was pushed out, the more he started lashing out.
Possessive was one thing he couldn’t ever fight inside of him and a part of thinks he should have warned his dad before he plucked him from Brave Bow’s arms; that once he was his, Roy wouldn’t let go.
Ollie talks about turning out to be an incredible man and yet Roy doesn’t feel special or that he does anything that could deem that true. He does want he’s supposed—like always—and doesn’t stick his finger into the chocolate bowl without being certain he won’t get caught. His expression softened because Ollie’s ripping his heart out for Roy to see it isn’t made of diamonds like he used to believe when he was young.
His dad is just every bit insecure and human as he is.
Sighing, Roy leaned back on his hands, huffing out into the open air. “The whole point was that I didn’t want to do it alone, Dad….I just…I want to be on good terms, honest, I do. But every time I think about how you were and how much it doesn’t feel like you changed, it just….I dunno…gets my blood boiling.” He glanced at him. “I know you said you’re trying and I’m….I’m trying too.”
Ollie shivered. He was sort of longing to slip back into the warm water, now, but that would look too much like running away, he was sure.
Instead, he leaned back on his hands, kicking in the water. “It’s a hard thing,” he mused, “accepting that somebody’s changed, even if you can *see* them changing. Or even trying. Because when you’ve known each other for a long time, all you can hear is a million previous conversations, all you can see is a million actions gone by. We’ve got a lot of history overlaying itself on everything we’re trying to get done right now, kid, and a lot of it’s bad history.”
Christ, he was sounding as preachy as Hal.
“I guess what I’m trying to say, Roy, is that I know you’re mad as hell, and you got every right to be. You keep on being mad for however long it feels like you need it.” Ollie carefully slung his arm along Roy’s bare shoulders, shuddering again at the shock of their damp skin meeting and sticking. “Be mad at me all the livelong day. I’m not going anywhere.”
Roy thought he was doing something wrong. Like he was the reason Ollie was suddenly getting so tense after touching him in that, half buddy buddy kind of way, half fatherly manner. Ollie’s still not okay about Roy’s….whatever Ollie wanted to classify it and that….It hurts in a way that he’ll never admit. He needed a better grasp on this, on them, on the anger that Ollie’s allowing to let him vent.
It would suck if Roy didn’t feel much rage after getting his dad’s consent. Actually, it’d be pretty fucking embarrassing if that happened. Luckily for Roy though, he’s strong in his grudge-y/angry ways and this will take lots of time to get used to.
“Alright….We’ll see where it goes. I’ll uh…try not to snap your head off so much when it happens.” He replied hopefully, glancing at Ollie and poking his side teasingly.
“Atta boy.” The old encouragement rolled thoughtlessly, carelessly off his tongue, and Ollie mentally berated himself for it. None of that now, anymore, when it came to Roy. No more bare minimum.
Instead, he dug his fingers into Roy’s shoulder, jostling him hard and then leaning over to plant a big, loud, smacking kiss on Roy’s wet hair. “So how’sabout a race in the pool, then?” he grinned. “See if you can finally beat your old man?”
Roy tried his best not to make a face at that. Ollie was being affectionate and okay, now that he was getting it, it was a bit weird coming from the old man. He’d get used to it though since it’s been what he’s wanted for longer than he can remember.
“I could be wearing a fur coat and weighted boots and still make it to the other side first while your old bones give out on you.” He goaded back and pushed Ollie into the water.
“Go ahead, you can have a head start.” He teased, standing up and shaking out his hair.
Swinging his arms in front of him, Ollie headed out of the change room and to the pool, only to find that he hadn’t been the only one jonesing for an early-morning swim. There was a red head moving steadily along in the water, and although there were plenty carrot-tops up in the Tower, only one of them belonged to him. In a manner of speaking.
“Hey, Roy!” he called, waiting for Roy to stop and turn around before taking a running dive into the water.
Roy woke up earlier than he wanted to today. His mood was iffy at best and he decided it would better to swim it out than let Lian wear him down before he’s ready.
He’s managed to navigate his way around the place pretty nicely. Finding the pool and squeeing just slightly at the size of it. How cool was this?~
Roy decides that not jumping right in would be an insult to this establishment and this pool and everything he stands for. So stripping of his shirt, he decides he’ll leave his jeans on and deal with the wet fabric later. He’s under the water, his hair sticking from the top as he swam. Coming up though, he caught Ollie’s voice and turned around in the water, frowning.
Oh great. It’s Mr. Avoidant. Wading in the water, he watched Ollie jump in and Roy sighed, swimming over to him. How had he not noticed the other before? Was he here first? Probably. Roy did pick this hobby up from him.
“…Hey Dad..”
“Nice morning for a dip, huh? I couldn’t —” Ollie wiped water from his face and slicked his hair back, frowning. “Are you wearing *jeans* in the pool? What the hell? Roy, you *know* roughly three-fifths of all the people on this station, lots of whom are guys around the same size as you. You couldn’t rustle up ONE of these guys and borrow a pair of trunks?” Ollie swam in a slow circle and came back to where he’d started, facing Roy. “Or at least swim in your shorts?”
Roy smirked, shrugging as he wadded in the water and watched Ollie circle him like a shark. “Well see, I came in here just checking stuff out and couldn’t resist. Besides, if I was in here with just my shorts, I’d be in a pool naked with you…” He was staring at the other closely for his reaction. “And we wouldn’t want that now, would we?”
Ollie scowled, making splashes in the water with his hands as he treaded. “Roy, that’s not funny. I thought we—” He cut himself off abruptly and swam away, waiting until he was up against the side of the pool before finishing, “— you still could’a found somebody to lend you something.” He was being unreasonable, somewhat, considering that people with fur and scales and clothing made of energy or alien polymers swam in this pool. But he wasn’t responsible for those people. And before he could even stop the words from leaving his lips—
“I brought you up better than to wear jeans into a pool, dammit.”
He bit the inside of his lip, cursing himself. If Roy didn’t take *that* one off to the races, Ollie’d consider himself lucky.
Roy protected himself from the splash of water in his face, ducking and watching as Ollie practically ran away. Seriously. This was what they were going to fight about? Rolling his eyes, Roy decided that ignoring the old man would make this go by a lot faster. Swimming and floating lazily on his back he shrugged in the water, even though he knew his father couldn’t very well see.
But then he had to go and make that qwuip.
“Excuse you?” He practically sat up and he glared. If his glares could kill. Ollie would be dead. “Brought me up better? Do you even know what that fucking phrase means Ollie? Cus I’m sure as hell certain that what you fucking did, was not bringing me up!”
“Oh, here we go.” Ollie kicked off from the wall and swam to the other side of the pool, turning to glare at Roy. “When are you gonna get over it, Roy? There’s only so much fucking apologizing I can do. There’s only so many times I can prostrate myself on the forgiveness of Roy Harper and hell, all his friends and hell, all MY friends for that matter, before it becomes pretty fucking hollow a gesture.
“So tell me, Roy.” Ollie swam to the middle of the pool where Roy was furiously treading water. “Tell me for once and for fucking all what you want, what I can DO to get you to stop acting like I brought you home and kept you in a dog crate. I know I wasn’t any kind of great parent to you, dammit, but it’s been years since then and things have changed and I’m trying! I’m *trying*!”
“Yeah well, I don’t want your sorry to come out of judgement from others!” He growled angrily, trying not to get to riled up because then this could have easily turned into a splashing game of anger and frustration. But Ollie’s gotten ridiculously close for a shouting match and he hates this. Hates when Ollie asks him now of all fucking times to explain himself.
“Really?! REALLY?! You want to fucking do this right fucking now? When you fucking feel bad about everything? When you have people breathing down your neck for you to fucking do something about it you frustatingly cockeyed buffalo!” And this is going to turn into a splashing contest because he swats a wave of water into Ollie’s face, glaring at him defiantly.
“You’re trying at all the wrong times, Dad. Being condescending and inconsiderate isn’t any different than when you ignored the shit out of me!”
The wave of water caught him off-guard, and Ollie spent some time sputtering and spitting before he could answer. “Well jesus, Roy, could you send me a schedule or something so I know just when IS the right time to try with you? Goddammit, boy! You’re like a cactus full of bees half the damn time!”
Roy made an inarticulate noise of rage at that and Ollie turned, swimming with long deliberate strokes to the side of the pool to haul himself out. He sat down on the edge with his legs in the water, watching Roy glare at him from the middle. “If we’re gonna talk about this, then let’s at least talk. Instead of yelling in the middle of a goddamn pool.”
Roy was satisfied that Ollie was choking in a really ‘I’m just angry’ kind of way. He’s just glaring, folding his arms because “I’ll show you a fucking cactus,” he muttered under his breath and watched Ollie swim away to sit up on the edge of the pool. You just don’t want to get splashed again, he growled internally before dipping into the water and swimming towards the edge near Ollie.
He came back up when he reach a few paces away, hefting himself up in one go without jumping for it and scooting just a little bit closer to his father. He kept his bad mood tight, waiting for Ollie to start reprimanding him. If he did though, he’d push him back into the water as revenge.
“So.” Ollie looked over at Roy, who was seething visibly — tense all through, hair dark with water and bristling at the back of his neck, jaw working. “So. Let’s just take it as a given that I was a terrible father to you when you were growing up and I was never there for you when you needed me. I’m sorry about that, Roy. I wish I could’ve been better for you — for a lot of people, really — but I don’t know what I can do about all that now.”
Roy’s not expecting that. But then again, he doesn’t expect a lot of things most of the time. And he’s trying, just a little bit to be more…open about this. Dick said he needed to give his Dad another chance, to let him apologize at his own pace. But a large part of Roy feels like it’s too late. Mostly because he’s just so angry it happened.
Huffing he grit his teeth and gave Ollie another snippy glance before opening his mouth. “Damn straight you were shit. And stop. Just…Stop doing that. Making it about everyone else. Can we pretend for five seconds that we’re the only people in the world right now, because if you bringing up that shit, about being better for other people and loving them more and other crap, I’m going to deck you. Hard. In the face.”
That was … new-ish. Not that Roy was so greedy for Ollie’s attention, that’d been obvious since the first time they’d met, but … for him to put it that way. With so much clarity, instead of the usual sputtering rage.
“Okay,” Ollie said. “You ‘n me, Roy, nobody else.” He swished his feet in the water for a moment. “It was like that a lot of the time, wasn’t it? I mean, all the training, all the hanging out at the house, all the stakeouts and patrols — even when I dragged you around to parties and stuff, you were the one I took with me! You were, y’know, the one I *wanted* to take with me!
“And I dunno if all this is enraging you more, or anything, but christ, Roy — you’re my son. My eldest, and the one I’d trust to take care of the rest of the family if anything happens to me. I haven’t done a great job taking care of you, but somehow you managed to grow up into an incredible young man. On your own.”
Ollie stopped there and rubbed his eyebrows. He’d told himself these things over and over a million times, but they still hurt to say out loud, unvarnished. Unpolished truth.
Watching Ollie talk and unload was like watching an owl mauling the shit out a field mouse. Roy’s not so sure who’s the owl and who’s the mouse yet because Ollie’s always been his dad. He wasn’t shit when he brought Roy everywhere. He wasn’t neglectful when he let Roy tag along, even when he was planning on getting some sex for the night. What bothered him was that Ollie crashed and burned in all the wrong ways. Avoidant in a way that always pushed Roy out.
And the more he was pushed out, the more he started lashing out.
Possessive was one thing he couldn’t ever fight inside of him and a part of thinks he should have warned his dad before he plucked him from Brave Bow’s arms; that once he was his, Roy wouldn’t let go.
Ollie talks about turning out to be an incredible man and yet Roy doesn’t feel special or that he does anything that could deem that true. He does want he’s supposed—like always—and doesn’t stick his finger into the chocolate bowl without being certain he won’t get caught. His expression softened because Ollie’s ripping his heart out for Roy to see it isn’t made of diamonds like he used to believe when he was young.
His dad is just every bit insecure and human as he is.
Sighing, Roy leaned back on his hands, huffing out into the open air. “The whole point was that I didn’t want to do it alone, Dad….I just…I want to be on good terms, honest, I do. But every time I think about how you were and how much it doesn’t feel like you changed, it just….I dunno…gets my blood boiling.” He glanced at him. “I know you said you’re trying and I’m….I’m trying too.”
Ollie shivered. He was sort of longing to slip back into the warm water, now, but that would look too much like running away, he was sure.
Instead, he leaned back on his hands, kicking in the water. “It’s a hard thing,” he mused, “accepting that somebody’s changed, even if you can *see* them changing. Or even trying. Because when you’ve known each other for a long time, all you can hear is a million previous conversations, all you can see is a million actions gone by. We’ve got a lot of history overlaying itself on everything we’re trying to get done right now, kid, and a lot of it’s bad history.”
Christ, he was sounding as preachy as Hal.
“I guess what I’m trying to say, Roy, is that I know you’re mad as hell, and you got every right to be. You keep on being mad for however long it feels like you need it.” Ollie carefully slung his arm along Roy’s bare shoulders, shuddering again at the shock of their damp skin meeting and sticking. “Be mad at me all the livelong day. I’m not going anywhere.”
Roy thought he was doing something wrong. Like he was the reason Ollie was suddenly getting so tense after touching him in that, half buddy buddy kind of way, half fatherly manner. Ollie’s still not okay about Roy’s….whatever Ollie wanted to classify it and that….It hurts in a way that he’ll never admit. He needed a better grasp on this, on them, on the anger that Ollie’s allowing to let him vent.
It would suck if Roy didn’t feel much rage after getting his dad’s consent. Actually, it’d be pretty fucking embarrassing if that happened. Luckily for Roy though, he’s strong in his grudge-y/angry ways and this will take lots of time to get used to.
“Alright….We’ll see where it goes. I’ll uh…try not to snap your head off so much when it happens.” He replied hopefully, glancing at Ollie and poking his side teasingly.
“Atta boy.” The old encouragement rolled thoughtlessly, carelessly off his tongue, and Ollie mentally berated himself for it. None of that now, anymore, when it came to Roy. No more bare minimum.
Instead, he dug his fingers into Roy’s shoulder, jostling him hard and then leaning over to plant a big, loud, smacking kiss on Roy’s wet hair. “So how’sabout a race in the pool, then?” he grinned. “See if you can finally beat your old man?”
Roy tried his best not to make a face at that. Ollie was being affectionate and okay, now that he was getting it, it was a bit weird coming from the old man. He’d get used to it though since it’s been what he’s wanted for longer than he can remember.
“I could be wearing a fur coat and weighted boots and still make it to the other side first while your old bones give out on you.” He goaded back and pushed Ollie into the water.
“Go ahead, you can have a head start.” He teased, standing up and shaking out his hair.