Storm Warning
Sep. 8th, 2019 07:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hennessysTitle: Storm Warning
Rating: PG
Summary: Why Felix left, and why he came back.
Warnings: a lot of discussion of a depressive mindset and negative self-talk
Notes: For Sara, who asked Felix: "How complicated are things with Jack? A lot of unresolved stuff there?" The answer: SO MUCH.
It was summer when I left. Hot and dry, thunderstorms roiling out to sea but never quite making it to land. The nights were hot and still, cicadas droning in the background; the days were hot and still, traffic blaring horns and people swearing. We lived with it. We always lived with it.
That summer I couldn't live with it anymore.
It wasn't just the heat. I like the heat. Jack says I'm part lizard, but he would know—he's right out there sunbathing with me. I'm not fond of the thunderstorms when they do make landfall, but I can deal. The cicadas are almost soothing. Traffic, less so, but part of life.
If I'm going to be honest, and I sort of have to be, don't I? If I'm going to be honest, it was Jack.
Not in and of himself, of course. Jack in and of himself is perfectly—perfect seems like hyperbole but it happens to be true. He drinks and smokes and shoots up, he doesn't always deal with being bipolar as well as he could, and he's reckless with his time, his money, his body and his heart. He's also startlingly generous, compassionate and kind, and he gives pieces of himself away to everyone he meets. Every flawed piece of him is perfect.
This sounds like we're in love. Of course, I am, in love with him, I mean, but he isn't. Not with me, anyway. Which is not to say he doesn't love me—he does, just not the way I want him to.
This is confusing. I should start over.
I was twenty-five, Jack twenty-six, and he'd just broken up with Samantha. It was because of that that I left, although not directly.
The thing about Samantha was that she wasn't stable, and she really should not have been in a relationship. Not to say that mentally ill people can't be in a relationship—far from it. Just that Samantha... didn't understand or wouldn't acknowledge that she was sick. I mean, I'm not a psychologist, I don't know what was wrong, but she was sick and she needed help, but she didn't think so. She always thought that the next guy would be the one, that the next relationship would fix her and she'd never hurt again; she wouldn't or couldn't see that she needed help first.
And Jack...
Okay, the thing about Jack is that he likes saving people. I think it's because he's convinced he can't be saved himself. Religious guilt, man. Even when you're no longer religious it haunts you. Having your own brain lie to you doesn't help. So Jack thinks he can't be saved, so he'll spend every last piece of himself to save someone else.
He saved me, when I was all alone, far from home, my family gone and all of my roots severed. He saves his sisters all the time; pulls Miranda back from the brink, lends a shoulder to help build Charlotte up again. He'll give everything he's got to save a stranger; I once saw him buy a homeless man a bespoke suit when the guy mentioned that he couldn't get a job interview because of how he looked. I am absolutely certain that he's saved people's lives. The problem is just that he won't save his own.
And I'm his best friend—I'm in love with him, yeah, but the important part here is that I'm his best friend. I get to watch that from the sidelines. He hides his cracks from his family and no one else looks close enough, so I'm trying to save him all on my own, and that summer, I just.. snapped.
He felt guilty. He couldn't save Samantha by being with her, and he somehow got it into his head that he'd just drag her down, so he left her. She cried, called him two or three times to try and get back together, and that just—wrecked him. He'd call me at two in the morning blackout drunk, he'd ask if he could sleep on my couch a few nights, he'd lean on me a little more than he usually did.
Let's be clear here: it wasn't those phone calls that broke me. Best friends do that sort of thing for each other. Hell, every time I have a painful breakup, I do the exact same thing to him. It was...
He wasn't crying about the breakup. He wasn't crying for himself. He was crying for Samantha, because he couldn't save her, and he thought that made him terrible, a horrible person. Loving him like I do, being his friend as I am, I could not stand for that. I could not watch him tear down someone I loved, watch him pick his life apart and shred it to pieces.
I'm not cruel. I stayed until he was over Samantha. I called Miranda before I left and made sure she'd keep an eye on him; I told her specifically not to let him gloss over his pain like he always does. She said something snippy and hung up on me, which I know means she understood. I took a leave of absence for the summer, and made sure Jack understood that this was temporary, that I just needed to get my head around some things.
And then I drove away. All day, every day, driving aimlessly, just trying to work it out. I love him, and though he loves me as a friend he'll never want anything more—was that enough for me? He tears himself apart, every day, beats up on himself no matter how hard I try to tell him otherwise—could I live with that, day in and day out?
He has no one else. Could I handle being everything to him except what I wanted?
I came back, of course. It took the whole summer, June, July, August, driving through the country and thinking, but I came back. I could handle it. I can handle it. But it's raw still, watching him shred himself to pieces and wondering if one day I won't be able to stitch him back up, watching myself crack and wondering if one day I won't be able to handle it anymore.
He's better now, a little. Enough that I think maybe that day will never come. It still looms there, in the back of my mind, like the thunderstorms roiling out at sea.
Rating: PG
Summary: Why Felix left, and why he came back.
Warnings: a lot of discussion of a depressive mindset and negative self-talk
Notes: For Sara, who asked Felix: "How complicated are things with Jack? A lot of unresolved stuff there?" The answer: SO MUCH.
It was summer when I left. Hot and dry, thunderstorms roiling out to sea but never quite making it to land. The nights were hot and still, cicadas droning in the background; the days were hot and still, traffic blaring horns and people swearing. We lived with it. We always lived with it.
That summer I couldn't live with it anymore.
It wasn't just the heat. I like the heat. Jack says I'm part lizard, but he would know—he's right out there sunbathing with me. I'm not fond of the thunderstorms when they do make landfall, but I can deal. The cicadas are almost soothing. Traffic, less so, but part of life.
If I'm going to be honest, and I sort of have to be, don't I? If I'm going to be honest, it was Jack.
Not in and of himself, of course. Jack in and of himself is perfectly—perfect seems like hyperbole but it happens to be true. He drinks and smokes and shoots up, he doesn't always deal with being bipolar as well as he could, and he's reckless with his time, his money, his body and his heart. He's also startlingly generous, compassionate and kind, and he gives pieces of himself away to everyone he meets. Every flawed piece of him is perfect.
This sounds like we're in love. Of course, I am, in love with him, I mean, but he isn't. Not with me, anyway. Which is not to say he doesn't love me—he does, just not the way I want him to.
This is confusing. I should start over.
I was twenty-five, Jack twenty-six, and he'd just broken up with Samantha. It was because of that that I left, although not directly.
The thing about Samantha was that she wasn't stable, and she really should not have been in a relationship. Not to say that mentally ill people can't be in a relationship—far from it. Just that Samantha... didn't understand or wouldn't acknowledge that she was sick. I mean, I'm not a psychologist, I don't know what was wrong, but she was sick and she needed help, but she didn't think so. She always thought that the next guy would be the one, that the next relationship would fix her and she'd never hurt again; she wouldn't or couldn't see that she needed help first.
And Jack...
Okay, the thing about Jack is that he likes saving people. I think it's because he's convinced he can't be saved himself. Religious guilt, man. Even when you're no longer religious it haunts you. Having your own brain lie to you doesn't help. So Jack thinks he can't be saved, so he'll spend every last piece of himself to save someone else.
He saved me, when I was all alone, far from home, my family gone and all of my roots severed. He saves his sisters all the time; pulls Miranda back from the brink, lends a shoulder to help build Charlotte up again. He'll give everything he's got to save a stranger; I once saw him buy a homeless man a bespoke suit when the guy mentioned that he couldn't get a job interview because of how he looked. I am absolutely certain that he's saved people's lives. The problem is just that he won't save his own.
And I'm his best friend—I'm in love with him, yeah, but the important part here is that I'm his best friend. I get to watch that from the sidelines. He hides his cracks from his family and no one else looks close enough, so I'm trying to save him all on my own, and that summer, I just.. snapped.
He felt guilty. He couldn't save Samantha by being with her, and he somehow got it into his head that he'd just drag her down, so he left her. She cried, called him two or three times to try and get back together, and that just—wrecked him. He'd call me at two in the morning blackout drunk, he'd ask if he could sleep on my couch a few nights, he'd lean on me a little more than he usually did.
Let's be clear here: it wasn't those phone calls that broke me. Best friends do that sort of thing for each other. Hell, every time I have a painful breakup, I do the exact same thing to him. It was...
He wasn't crying about the breakup. He wasn't crying for himself. He was crying for Samantha, because he couldn't save her, and he thought that made him terrible, a horrible person. Loving him like I do, being his friend as I am, I could not stand for that. I could not watch him tear down someone I loved, watch him pick his life apart and shred it to pieces.
I'm not cruel. I stayed until he was over Samantha. I called Miranda before I left and made sure she'd keep an eye on him; I told her specifically not to let him gloss over his pain like he always does. She said something snippy and hung up on me, which I know means she understood. I took a leave of absence for the summer, and made sure Jack understood that this was temporary, that I just needed to get my head around some things.
And then I drove away. All day, every day, driving aimlessly, just trying to work it out. I love him, and though he loves me as a friend he'll never want anything more—was that enough for me? He tears himself apart, every day, beats up on himself no matter how hard I try to tell him otherwise—could I live with that, day in and day out?
He has no one else. Could I handle being everything to him except what I wanted?
I came back, of course. It took the whole summer, June, July, August, driving through the country and thinking, but I came back. I could handle it. I can handle it. But it's raw still, watching him shred himself to pieces and wondering if one day I won't be able to stitch him back up, watching myself crack and wondering if one day I won't be able to handle it anymore.
He's better now, a little. Enough that I think maybe that day will never come. It still looms there, in the back of my mind, like the thunderstorms roiling out at sea.
