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thejusticelounge2015-01-01 05:50 pm
bossymarmalade) wrote in thejusticelounge2015-01-01 05:50 pm
Entry tags:
& the cat's in the cradle & the silver spoon
Roy is dressed in full gear as he stands at the crock pot in the kitchen in Star, adding slices of whole red bell pepper.
Ollie comes in yawning, scratching his chest. He’s still in pyjamas, having slept in after a long night’s patrol, the evidence of which is the bruise along one cheekbone and eyebrow ridge and the slight limp. “Tell me there’s coffee,” he says, sitting at the kitchen table. “Or sandwiches. Or cheesecake. Hell, I’ll eat yogurt tubes right now.”
Roy nods, and walks over to the coffee pot, which is perpetually on, and full, and pours him a mug. He also goes into the fridge and rustles up some left over lo me in and Orange chicken. He whistles, once, at Ollie, holding it up for a yea or nay.
Ollie “Please,” Ollie says fervently. He doesn’t get up to try and reheat the food, which pretty much means he wants Roy to do it for him. “So why’re you making crockpot dinners in full kit, anyhoo?”
Roy takes the food and walks over to the cabinet where the plates and bowls are and removing a toaster oven safe Pyrex pours the contents of both take out containers into it. He walks over to the toaster oven, opening the door, before he punches in a reasonable time. He shrugs, finishing the rest of the bell pepper that didn’t go in the pot. “It’s a new vegan recipe I’m trying out.. ‘Bout to go on patrol.”
Ollie makes a long, ‘oh yeah’ sound. “Right. Vegan. Boy, am I ever glad that lots of these vegan recipes perk up when you add some meat.” He drinks most of the coffee in his cup before saying, “You want company on patrol? Once I get some food in me, I’ll be good to go.”
Roy shakes his head at Ollie’s comment, even if he is inclined to agree. “Nah, it’s good. Got some shit to sort out in the ether.” He pours himself a cup of coffee, and without looking at ollie, asks: “..so what’s the sitrep for Chrismtas?”
Ollie waves his hand at Roy, even though the younger man’s not looking. “Come siddown and we’ll talk,” he says, the words cottony around the edges. “I don’t like talking at the back’ve your head, boychik.”
Roy turns around, and grabbing a banana from the counter, he takes a seat opposite Ollie, sipping his own coffee. “I was thinkin’ we could take a ride down to the suburbs for that light show the neighborhood in La Picina
Roy always does.”
Ollie gives an open-mouthed grin, eyes lighting up despite the lingering ache in them. “Hey! That’s a great idea! Who doesn’t love a good light show, especially in beautiful Star City?” He reaches over and claps Roy on the arm, shaking it a little. “I’m glad you’d be all right with everybody converging here for Christmas. Mia seems all right with it too, and I know Conner won’t mind. It’ll be great, Roy, you’ll see.” The food is smelling good as it warms, and Ollie’s stomach gurgles, but he doesn’t get up for it yet, watching Roy intently, fingers firm on the muscle of his upper arm.
Roy rolls his tongue against his teeth, jabbing the tip against the cracked tooth, as he nods, exhaling. “Had a conversation with Mar’i, and I just..” He looks over at Ollie, the edges of his gaze wrinkles. He’s getting older, and while he’s not quite at thirty yet, he’s not the rangy, gangly kid he once was. And it’s obvious that he’s in pain. “I’ve got a lot of shit I need to fix—” he draws in a sharp breath. “—about myself. And I don’t—I want to do better by you. For you. You know?” He’s rambling now, all of it skittering against the edges of his teeth. “..and I mean, fightin’ is normal for us, but like? Not when it hurts.” He looks away, at his cooking chili. “Not about stuff that once it’s been hurt takes a long time to.. Not be sore over.” He swallows, heavily.
Roy sucks in another breath. “And I keep fuckin’ up. Feels like it’s been days since I’ve done anything good.”
Ollie presses his fingers more deeply into Roy’s arm, drawing that Caribbean sea gaze back forcibly. “Okay,” he says, once he’s sure Roy is looking, is tuned in. “That’s fine. That’s everyone. All of us works in progress.” He lets go of Roy then and sits back, rubbing at his ribs. “This isn’t fucking up, Roy. This right here. And you got a lot more to make up about with Mar’i, because she’s your partner and that’s a whole different thing, but I’m your father. So it’s okay and this is good, you being here.” Ollie looks over at the counter with a faint grin. “And making food. That always counts ‘round Arrowparts.”
Roy nods, and looks back at him. “She’s not sure this is worth it.” And he lets that sit there, for the real depth of that statement to settle between them, and when the pain resurfaces in his gaze, he stands up and moves towards the fridge.
Ollie folds his hands on the table. “How d’you feel about that? Her feeling that way, I mean. I’m going on the assumption that you /do/ feel it’s worth it.”
Roy opens the fridge and looks inside. “I started by telling her it was worth it, and we talked, and when I asked her if she thought the same, she said she wasn’t sure.” He says all of this without looking at Ollie, one booted foot lifting to scratch its toe against his calf. “I feel like fucking shit.”
Ollie says mildly, “Yeah, I can imagine.” He clears his throat. “You understand why she would say that?”
Roy shakes his head. “Nope. Because I can’t think of a single—” He pauses. “I can think of maybe one thing that could ever make me think that she.. that we weren’t worth it.”
Ollie makes the same gesture, the same angle of the headshake, just more impatient. “No, that’s not what I mean. D’you understand why /Mar’i/ would be doubtful. After all this time and after all the shit that’s gone down.”
Roy shakes his head. “Nope.” And he is wholeheartedly adamantly honest about this: he can’t see it. He can’t understand how she could doubt them. How she could doubt their worth.
Ollie nods. “Okay. Well, I’m not gonna put words into her mouth, but I advise you to try, son. /Try/ and see how Mar’i — with everything you know about her as a person, with her history, all if it — how she would feel that way considering what went down between you. Really, really sit down with yourself and /try/.”
Roy looks over at Ollie, and his expression shifts, into something more subdued, a haunting of sorts, back to the way he looked before, before any of this. Not understanding the things around him, except for the things that made sense in the way the world did: the order of it, the resolute and irreversible value of it. He nods, and looks back at the fridge, pushing his hand inside to rustle around, looking for tea.
Ollie “Get what you want from in there and come sit down, Roy. I need you to focus while I’m talkin’ to you.” Ollie gets up and fetches the warmed dishes of food, getting himself some chopsticks and settling down again. “I need to look at your face.”
Roy grabs the orange juice, removing the top and taking a seat, drinking directly from the jug. He looks at Ollie, but doesn’t speak.
Ollie chews, swallows. “Listen to me, Roy. The last thing you need to do here is get caught up in your head about this. I know you, I know the swirls and eddies where debris gets all jammed up and goes around in endless circles. Sweep it all out. All the junk, all the doubt and fear, all the shit from the past that wants to get in here and fuck things up. Sweep it all out. You need your mind to be running clear in order to understand any of this.”
Roy looks over at him and has to fight the urge to roll his lip. “How? How am I supposed to do that when she’s not even sure that in the end I’m worth it??" His voice cracks and he brings his hands together, clasping them together, and sticking them between his knees. "..because she’s probably right, Ollie."
Ollie raps the table sharply with the ends of his chopsticks. “No! Wrong! Roy, that’s exactly what I’m talking about, punkin. You can’t think like that. Don’t get bunged up on ‘I fuck up all the time’ and ‘everybody leaves me in the end’ and…” He leans forward a little bit. “Is that what she meant? Did she mean that /you/ weren’t worth it? IS that what she was saying, or is that just what you heard and how you interpreted it?”
Roy looks up, just as sharp, at the sound of those chopsticks, and Ollie’s voice, and he takes a deep breath, inhaling and then exhaling, and when he finishes, the takes another.. It is rapidly evident that he is attempting to curb his desire to shout, to say fuck it, because he wants to try. “..how else am I supposed to interpret that, Ollie?”
Ollie goes back to his food. “Clear your stream, and think about it,” he says, voice unruffled. In fact, he sounds eerily like he did in the old days when he was teaching Roy to shoot drops of water, to wait, to exercise patience. To be a man with time on his hands even if there was death and doom flying around his ears. He eats some more of the chicken and then puts his chopsticks down. “Roy,” Ollie says, more gently, “I know you’re in a lot of pain. Christ, kid, it’s pouring off you. But if you’re gonna make any real progression, you’re gonna need to not let that overwhelm you. It’s impossible to move forward if you’re mired in feeling like shit.”
Roy looks up at Ollie, and speaks again, his voice cracking. “I’m not the only one who fucked up, so why does it feel that way?”
Ollie takes a breath. “Because,” he says, “you don’t want to be at fault. I love you, Roy, but you’ve never been one for blaming yourself when there was anybody else around who you could blame.”
Roy blinks, and watches Ollie for a long moment, some of the anger draining from his face. After a moment or two, he rises up, and puts the top back on the orange juice, moving to grab a permanent marker from the junk drawer, writing his name on the top of it. He moves to the fridge, replacing it inside.
Ollie watches this series of motions, not sure what it means or how to take it. “I’m not tryin’ to make you feel bad. But I’m your dad and if I can’t tell you this shit, who can?” He adds, more urgently, “I love you. I love you both and I want you back together, but as better people. And you’re my responsibility ‘cause you’re my pup.”
Zee “Klarion the Witchboy.” Zee fills in the blank, “That’s not his cat, his familiar Teekle doesn’t look anything like that cat.” Although there was a possibility the cat was someone else’s familiar- her mom’s? No. “It’s fine. It wants us to see something, and it likes me because I have a cat that’s all.” Zee stands up, extending her hand to hold Kyle’s once more, “Lets go see what the cat wants.”
Roy states, his voice easy, and calm. “..thanks for talking to me about this, ‘cause I appreciate it, but I can’t keep talkin’ on this tack, if you don’t get..” He takes a breath, licking his lips. Shaking his head, he looks over at Ollie, locking eyes on the other man. “There’s no one else I blame more’n me, Ollie.” He smirks, laughing at the inside humor of his next statement. “Not even you, if you can believe that.” He makes a motion with his hand, waving off the conversation, before scrubbing his hand against his head. “Anyway. I’ll catch up with you when you’re done eatin’.”
Ollie looks down at the decimated Chinese food. “I’m pretty much done,” he says. “I could go with you. On patrol.” He stands up, not waiting for Roy to agree. “Gimme just a second to get changed, okay? We can work it out on the streets. The bow always makes things clearer, hey?” Ollie rests his hand on Roy’s shoulder as he goes past him. “I understand what you’re saying. But you need to think deeper on what I said.”
Roy shakes his head. “I really just.. need the air, Ollie.” He says this as gently as possibly, but also in a way that won’t cause upset: a request, and one that he hasn’t made since he was much, much younger.
Ollie feels a bit of a sting, but he sets it aside quickly enough before a chorus of Cat’s in the Cradle can kick up in the back of his head and take things into the stupidly maudling. “All right, then,” he agrees, going back to the leftovers. “But don’t feel like you can’t talk to me, and don’t feel like I’m trying to blame you. It’s not that. I’m trying to help.”
Roy nods at him, moving his hands behind his back, stretching and cracking his back as he walks towards the room where they keep their bows, tucked in a place where the access is easy, and leads up to the roof. “..yeah. Thanks.” He raps his knuckles against the older man’s shoulder, before he sets off at a half-jog. “I’ll be on comms.”
Ollie murmurs, “Give ‘em hell.” He waits until Roy’s off, out of the house, before he gets up again to check the chili, and to fetch his own comm and keep it on. Just in case he changes his mind.
Ollie comes in yawning, scratching his chest. He’s still in pyjamas, having slept in after a long night’s patrol, the evidence of which is the bruise along one cheekbone and eyebrow ridge and the slight limp. “Tell me there’s coffee,” he says, sitting at the kitchen table. “Or sandwiches. Or cheesecake. Hell, I’ll eat yogurt tubes right now.”
Roy nods, and walks over to the coffee pot, which is perpetually on, and full, and pours him a mug. He also goes into the fridge and rustles up some left over lo me in and Orange chicken. He whistles, once, at Ollie, holding it up for a yea or nay.
Ollie “Please,” Ollie says fervently. He doesn’t get up to try and reheat the food, which pretty much means he wants Roy to do it for him. “So why’re you making crockpot dinners in full kit, anyhoo?”
Roy takes the food and walks over to the cabinet where the plates and bowls are and removing a toaster oven safe Pyrex pours the contents of both take out containers into it. He walks over to the toaster oven, opening the door, before he punches in a reasonable time. He shrugs, finishing the rest of the bell pepper that didn’t go in the pot. “It’s a new vegan recipe I’m trying out.. ‘Bout to go on patrol.”
Ollie makes a long, ‘oh yeah’ sound. “Right. Vegan. Boy, am I ever glad that lots of these vegan recipes perk up when you add some meat.” He drinks most of the coffee in his cup before saying, “You want company on patrol? Once I get some food in me, I’ll be good to go.”
Roy shakes his head at Ollie’s comment, even if he is inclined to agree. “Nah, it’s good. Got some shit to sort out in the ether.” He pours himself a cup of coffee, and without looking at ollie, asks: “..so what’s the sitrep for Chrismtas?”
Ollie waves his hand at Roy, even though the younger man’s not looking. “Come siddown and we’ll talk,” he says, the words cottony around the edges. “I don’t like talking at the back’ve your head, boychik.”
Roy turns around, and grabbing a banana from the counter, he takes a seat opposite Ollie, sipping his own coffee. “I was thinkin’ we could take a ride down to the suburbs for that light show the neighborhood in La Picina
Roy always does.”
Ollie gives an open-mouthed grin, eyes lighting up despite the lingering ache in them. “Hey! That’s a great idea! Who doesn’t love a good light show, especially in beautiful Star City?” He reaches over and claps Roy on the arm, shaking it a little. “I’m glad you’d be all right with everybody converging here for Christmas. Mia seems all right with it too, and I know Conner won’t mind. It’ll be great, Roy, you’ll see.” The food is smelling good as it warms, and Ollie’s stomach gurgles, but he doesn’t get up for it yet, watching Roy intently, fingers firm on the muscle of his upper arm.
Roy rolls his tongue against his teeth, jabbing the tip against the cracked tooth, as he nods, exhaling. “Had a conversation with Mar’i, and I just..” He looks over at Ollie, the edges of his gaze wrinkles. He’s getting older, and while he’s not quite at thirty yet, he’s not the rangy, gangly kid he once was. And it’s obvious that he’s in pain. “I’ve got a lot of shit I need to fix—” he draws in a sharp breath. “—about myself. And I don’t—I want to do better by you. For you. You know?” He’s rambling now, all of it skittering against the edges of his teeth. “..and I mean, fightin’ is normal for us, but like? Not when it hurts.” He looks away, at his cooking chili. “Not about stuff that once it’s been hurt takes a long time to.. Not be sore over.” He swallows, heavily.
Roy sucks in another breath. “And I keep fuckin’ up. Feels like it’s been days since I’ve done anything good.”
Ollie presses his fingers more deeply into Roy’s arm, drawing that Caribbean sea gaze back forcibly. “Okay,” he says, once he’s sure Roy is looking, is tuned in. “That’s fine. That’s everyone. All of us works in progress.” He lets go of Roy then and sits back, rubbing at his ribs. “This isn’t fucking up, Roy. This right here. And you got a lot more to make up about with Mar’i, because she’s your partner and that’s a whole different thing, but I’m your father. So it’s okay and this is good, you being here.” Ollie looks over at the counter with a faint grin. “And making food. That always counts ‘round Arrowparts.”
Roy nods, and looks back at him. “She’s not sure this is worth it.” And he lets that sit there, for the real depth of that statement to settle between them, and when the pain resurfaces in his gaze, he stands up and moves towards the fridge.
Ollie folds his hands on the table. “How d’you feel about that? Her feeling that way, I mean. I’m going on the assumption that you /do/ feel it’s worth it.”
Roy opens the fridge and looks inside. “I started by telling her it was worth it, and we talked, and when I asked her if she thought the same, she said she wasn’t sure.” He says all of this without looking at Ollie, one booted foot lifting to scratch its toe against his calf. “I feel like fucking shit.”
Ollie says mildly, “Yeah, I can imagine.” He clears his throat. “You understand why she would say that?”
Roy shakes his head. “Nope. Because I can’t think of a single—” He pauses. “I can think of maybe one thing that could ever make me think that she.. that we weren’t worth it.”
Ollie makes the same gesture, the same angle of the headshake, just more impatient. “No, that’s not what I mean. D’you understand why /Mar’i/ would be doubtful. After all this time and after all the shit that’s gone down.”
Roy shakes his head. “Nope.” And he is wholeheartedly adamantly honest about this: he can’t see it. He can’t understand how she could doubt them. How she could doubt their worth.
Ollie nods. “Okay. Well, I’m not gonna put words into her mouth, but I advise you to try, son. /Try/ and see how Mar’i — with everything you know about her as a person, with her history, all if it — how she would feel that way considering what went down between you. Really, really sit down with yourself and /try/.”
Roy looks over at Ollie, and his expression shifts, into something more subdued, a haunting of sorts, back to the way he looked before, before any of this. Not understanding the things around him, except for the things that made sense in the way the world did: the order of it, the resolute and irreversible value of it. He nods, and looks back at the fridge, pushing his hand inside to rustle around, looking for tea.
Ollie “Get what you want from in there and come sit down, Roy. I need you to focus while I’m talkin’ to you.” Ollie gets up and fetches the warmed dishes of food, getting himself some chopsticks and settling down again. “I need to look at your face.”
Roy grabs the orange juice, removing the top and taking a seat, drinking directly from the jug. He looks at Ollie, but doesn’t speak.
Ollie chews, swallows. “Listen to me, Roy. The last thing you need to do here is get caught up in your head about this. I know you, I know the swirls and eddies where debris gets all jammed up and goes around in endless circles. Sweep it all out. All the junk, all the doubt and fear, all the shit from the past that wants to get in here and fuck things up. Sweep it all out. You need your mind to be running clear in order to understand any of this.”
Roy looks over at him and has to fight the urge to roll his lip. “How? How am I supposed to do that when she’s not even sure that in the end I’m worth it??" His voice cracks and he brings his hands together, clasping them together, and sticking them between his knees. "..because she’s probably right, Ollie."
Ollie raps the table sharply with the ends of his chopsticks. “No! Wrong! Roy, that’s exactly what I’m talking about, punkin. You can’t think like that. Don’t get bunged up on ‘I fuck up all the time’ and ‘everybody leaves me in the end’ and…” He leans forward a little bit. “Is that what she meant? Did she mean that /you/ weren’t worth it? IS that what she was saying, or is that just what you heard and how you interpreted it?”
Roy looks up, just as sharp, at the sound of those chopsticks, and Ollie’s voice, and he takes a deep breath, inhaling and then exhaling, and when he finishes, the takes another.. It is rapidly evident that he is attempting to curb his desire to shout, to say fuck it, because he wants to try. “..how else am I supposed to interpret that, Ollie?”
Ollie goes back to his food. “Clear your stream, and think about it,” he says, voice unruffled. In fact, he sounds eerily like he did in the old days when he was teaching Roy to shoot drops of water, to wait, to exercise patience. To be a man with time on his hands even if there was death and doom flying around his ears. He eats some more of the chicken and then puts his chopsticks down. “Roy,” Ollie says, more gently, “I know you’re in a lot of pain. Christ, kid, it’s pouring off you. But if you’re gonna make any real progression, you’re gonna need to not let that overwhelm you. It’s impossible to move forward if you’re mired in feeling like shit.”
Roy looks up at Ollie, and speaks again, his voice cracking. “I’m not the only one who fucked up, so why does it feel that way?”
Ollie takes a breath. “Because,” he says, “you don’t want to be at fault. I love you, Roy, but you’ve never been one for blaming yourself when there was anybody else around who you could blame.”
Roy blinks, and watches Ollie for a long moment, some of the anger draining from his face. After a moment or two, he rises up, and puts the top back on the orange juice, moving to grab a permanent marker from the junk drawer, writing his name on the top of it. He moves to the fridge, replacing it inside.
Ollie watches this series of motions, not sure what it means or how to take it. “I’m not tryin’ to make you feel bad. But I’m your dad and if I can’t tell you this shit, who can?” He adds, more urgently, “I love you. I love you both and I want you back together, but as better people. And you’re my responsibility ‘cause you’re my pup.”
Zee “Klarion the Witchboy.” Zee fills in the blank, “That’s not his cat, his familiar Teekle doesn’t look anything like that cat.” Although there was a possibility the cat was someone else’s familiar- her mom’s? No. “It’s fine. It wants us to see something, and it likes me because I have a cat that’s all.” Zee stands up, extending her hand to hold Kyle’s once more, “Lets go see what the cat wants.”
Roy states, his voice easy, and calm. “..thanks for talking to me about this, ‘cause I appreciate it, but I can’t keep talkin’ on this tack, if you don’t get..” He takes a breath, licking his lips. Shaking his head, he looks over at Ollie, locking eyes on the other man. “There’s no one else I blame more’n me, Ollie.” He smirks, laughing at the inside humor of his next statement. “Not even you, if you can believe that.” He makes a motion with his hand, waving off the conversation, before scrubbing his hand against his head. “Anyway. I’ll catch up with you when you’re done eatin’.”
Ollie looks down at the decimated Chinese food. “I’m pretty much done,” he says. “I could go with you. On patrol.” He stands up, not waiting for Roy to agree. “Gimme just a second to get changed, okay? We can work it out on the streets. The bow always makes things clearer, hey?” Ollie rests his hand on Roy’s shoulder as he goes past him. “I understand what you’re saying. But you need to think deeper on what I said.”
Roy shakes his head. “I really just.. need the air, Ollie.” He says this as gently as possibly, but also in a way that won’t cause upset: a request, and one that he hasn’t made since he was much, much younger.
Ollie feels a bit of a sting, but he sets it aside quickly enough before a chorus of Cat’s in the Cradle can kick up in the back of his head and take things into the stupidly maudling. “All right, then,” he agrees, going back to the leftovers. “But don’t feel like you can’t talk to me, and don’t feel like I’m trying to blame you. It’s not that. I’m trying to help.”
Roy nods at him, moving his hands behind his back, stretching and cracking his back as he walks towards the room where they keep their bows, tucked in a place where the access is easy, and leads up to the roof. “..yeah. Thanks.” He raps his knuckles against the older man’s shoulder, before he sets off at a half-jog. “I’ll be on comms.”
Ollie murmurs, “Give ‘em hell.” He waits until Roy’s off, out of the house, before he gets up again to check the chili, and to fetch his own comm and keep it on. Just in case he changes his mind.