#Lots of emotions | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

storm-leviosa-fanfics · 10 months

Text

car ma vie, car mes joies, aujourd’hui, ça commence avec toi

It's finally here!!! My fic for the @batfam-big-bang!!! I got to work with my brilliant beta @enchantingruinscandy and the amazing artist @jube-art on this. Best team!! Thanks a million guys <3

Rated: Gen

Summary:

Maybe, he dared to think, Goliath couldn’t do it yet, but certainly he could with time. With effort. With training. Damian knew all about time, and effort, and training... Damian was going to be the first person to train a dragon-bat in dressage. or, Damian falls in love with dressage. How could he not? It is a beautiful, elegant sport, one that rewards control and accuracy and precision. The problem is that Damian does not have a horse. But that’s okay - he has Goliath. The dressage world will never be the same. Certainly some of the judges are never coming back.

Chapter 1 - starting from zero

The stables out back hadn’t been used in decades - well, except when Drake had lived in them for some god forsaken reason, but that didn’t count - which was why Damian was inspecting them. And it was a good thing he was: cobwebs so old they were thick with dust hung heavily from the rafters, the hinges on every door were rusted near to disintegration, and to top it all off, the rat holes made the stable floors themselves unstable. He didn’t dare inspect the hayloft. If the main stables were this bad, he dreaded to think what the upstairs was like. Most likely, it was more dangerous than swinging across Gotham’s rooftops.

In other words, the stables required intensive work to make them inhabitable. And making them inhabitable was the bare minimum really; Damian would not settle for any less than perfection.

He tapped the pen against his chin, scribbled another note. He could see how the stables would look once restored to their former glory. The high ceilings with strong wooden beams stained to keep out the rot, the dirt floors covered with concrete, rubber matting, and a thick layer of fluffy shavings, the hinges, kick bolts and stiff sliding bolts replaced with top-quality sliding doors, the shutters on the back windows replaced so the outside world was visible. It needed far more than a fresh coat of paint, like father had claimed (though a fresh coat of paint was also sorely needed) but all was not lost.

Damian’s newest project had come to him early in the morning in the form of a letter slotted into his window frame telling him in no uncertain terms that Goliath could no longer be kept on the island. Alternative arrangements must be made for him. Damian had put the letter down, gone to eat breakfast, and mentioned it to no one.

When, later on, he had passed a TV showing a sports channel inexplicably playing a video of horses dancing, he had thought to himself ‘Goliath could do that’, and then stopped. The rest of the morning passed in a blur, as Damian was slowly sucked into this sport he had not known existed until that very moment. Maybe, he dared to think, Goliath couldn’t do it yet , but certainly he could with time. With effort. With training. Damian knew all about time, and effort, and training. Damian needed to find a new home for Goliath. The connections were made and there was no turning back.

Damian was going to be the first person to train a dragon-bat in dressage.

… He just needed somewhere to keep him first.

The supplies Damian needed to fix the stables could not all be bought from a hardware store, or a farm supply store, nor could he do the fixing himself. It chafed at him, the need for outsiders, but there was no getting around it. Pennyworth was insistent. He could take a long-handled broom to the cobwebs though, so that was how he spent his Saturday afternoon: bandana firmly tied around the lower half of his face and broom in hand as he attacked cobwebs that had been spiderless before he was born. By dinnertime he had cleared one stall. It was the slowest of slow progress.

He came back the next day with a new bandana and a leaf blower and no adult supervision.

All the stalls were clear of cobwebs but Damian was grounded. This mattered not at all because now the cobwebs were cleared, Pennyworth’s favoured handyman could come in to replace the doors and windows. By the time he was ungrounded, the stables would be almost ready for their newest occupant. In the meantime, Titus needed walking and if he just so happened to swing by the stables while doing so, well, that was just a coincidence.

By the time he’d finished painting the stables, everyone had figured out something was up. Grayson had asked, Drake had made comments, Father had narrowed his eyes suspiciously and hummed. Pennyworth knew everything of course, but it would not be down to him whether Goliath came home. He would have to ask Father, and that made him nervous.

Asking made him nervous, so he didn’t ask. He simply told Father at breakfast that Goliath was coming home.

“I will require the Batplane this afternoon,” he said, solemnly, “the one with the large cargohold.”

Father asked no questions, so he told no lies.

“You know what happens if you don’t bring it back in one piece,” he warned instead. Yes, Damian did know what the consequences were if he destroyed the Batplane. Luckily for him, this was not any kind of mission, merely a transportation need.

“I’ll be back in time for patrol,” he told Father, and Father grunted, then returned to his tablet. WE had been…difficult lately, and taking up far more of Father’s time than he would like. It boded well for Damian though, that Father was distracted. A distracted Father was one less likely to complain about another pet that Damian had acquired.

Goliath did not want to get on the plane, did not want to stand in the hold, did not want to leave the island, or eat treats out of Damian’s hand. He was scared by the movement of the plane, by the sound of the engines, by the strangeness of his environment. And Damian did not have Maya with him this time, did not have Jon to call on to help, or Colin to regale his adventures to. He was alone, with a terrified beast and a plane to fly and he may be just a little bit out of his depth.

But Damian Wayne does not give up easily. Damian Wayne did not need help. He could fly a plane and placate Goliath and keep everyone safe and Father would never know about this brief set-back. Except Goliath was well and truly panicking, tugging at his leadrope and pawing at the floor, whites of his eyes showing as his eyes rolled in his head. Damian looked at him, looked at the controls of the plane, looked at the med-kit stashed in the cubby, looked back at Goliath. He had two options here: one, he could ditch the plane, fly Goliath home, miss patrol and face the consequences, or two, he could see how much sedative was in the med-kit. There were no other safe options.

They did not have enough midazolam to be particularly useful, but Damian wasn’t looking to knock Goliath out completely, just relax him a bit. If he used all they had, it would probably be enough - there weren’t exactly textbooks about anaesthetising Goliath’s species, but he could guess based on size. Sure enough, a quite frankly alarmingly large injection of sedative later and Goliath was no longer hysterical in the hold of the Batplane. Damian was cleared for takeoff.

It was time to go home.

When Damian returned, Father was a fuming, fussing volcano in the middle of the batcave. Damian’s hackles raised, and he had scarcely landed the plane before he and Father were arguing. Sharp, barbed words and vicious insults flew and Damian did not have it in him to regret. He knew Father likely would not either. This was a fight for Goliath, but in the heat of it Damian forgot about the beast, still tied up in the belly of the plane, the midazolam wearing off. By the time Father had stormed out of the cave, Damian had received a thorough tongue-lashing and a grounding and benching that he barely cared about. Goliath would be allowed to stay in the stables. All would be well.

Unable to leave the house, Damian poured himself into research - equipment, dress, exercises, tests to learn. A rule book was in his sights within hours. He found a database of instructors specialising in dressage in the state, did more research, made a pros and cons list for each, short-listed them, emailed several, and waited impatiently for replies. None were Gotham natives, but that shouldn’t matter over much. Dressage was dressage after all; these instructors had to teach only him. He could handle the rest alone.

Only one of the instructors replied to his emails, around the time his jodhpurs and helmet arrived. He answered all his questions in the same curt, business-like tone that Damian had emailed with to begin with. He seemed the type to take no nonsense, which he appreciated. His prices seemed reasonable, his credentials were significant - regional and national champion to prix st georges level, a longtime trainer of his own horses, a student of an Olympian that Damian, with only his new knowledge, did not know - and he was willing to travel to Gotham, which was only an added bonus. Pennyworth had approved the visitor for a week from now, though with pursed lips and a suspicious frown about his forehead, and so Damian’s first lesson was written into the family diary.

His name was Stephan and he arrived dressed to impress. Stepping out of a sleek black Land Rover in a tweed suit did not earn him respect from Damian or his family, but he was not to know that. Damian took him round to the stables, which he declared ‘quaint’, explained their lack of menage, which he claimed would not be an issue until the back end of the season, provided they had a field to ride in, and then showed him Goliath, tacked up and ready in shining new gear. Stephan’s nose wrinkled. His lip curled. Damian resolved to hate him. He also resolved to prove his first impression wrong.

In the field, Damian mounted and awaited instruction. Stephan told him to warm up, but Damian had never done that before. He did not know what he needed to do. He did know that dressage was not an aerial sport - Goliath would need to stay on the ground - and so he would need to use his legs to get him to go and not a flick of the reins. He dug in his heels and, with a brief lurch of surprise, Goliath set off at a marching walk.

Damian thought he was doing quite well really. He’d seen the horses walking on the TV and they didn’t go fast or slow, they picked their feet up in a short, eager stride, or else they had a long step with their head lowered. It wasn’t that hard really. Stephan urged him into a lurching trot, which had Damian bouncing all over the place no matter how hard he tried to remain still and serene, and then something akin to a canter. Poor Goliath’s legs didn’t move quite right for it to be a true canter, and Stephan’s face was not a happy one when Damian eventually stopped.

“Well he’s never going to be good,” he said, bluntly, “but we can work with what we’ve got I suppose.”

They worked on the canter because that was the bit that Goliath got most wrong, it seemed. Stephan barked orders from the middle of the arena for Damian to get him “rounder. I said rounder,” or else to “use your legs; I know you’ve got them.” By the end of the session, Damian was exhausted and Goliath was drooping. They still could not canter well.

“Practice,” Stephan said. “I’ll see you next week and I want to see that canter looking halfway decent.”

And so it went on. During the week, when Damian was not at school, he would practice just like Stephan told him to, until he and Goliath were sweating and trembling with exertion. On weekends, Stephan would come, shout at him for an hour, and then the whole cycle would begin again. He learnt how to tuck Goliath’s head in and get him to pick his feet up like the horses on TV. He learnt the drama of it all, the hard word and pain of popped blisters that hadn’t yet turned to calluses on the soft sides of his ring fingers. He learnt how to hold tight, and how to push so even Goliath’s thick skin could not ignore him.

He hated it.

There was something miserable about the endless nagging and tugging and fighting, something wrong. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Damian had watched so many videos, had seen so many pictures, and the riders at the top? They didn't battle with their mounts every day; they didn’t struggle and chip away at their horse’s will until it submitted. They didn’t move , some of them. Watching them, Damian had never felt further from his goal.

Finally ungrounded, Damian started patrolling again. It was…a manageable schedule. If anyone asked, he was not exhausted and didn't get up before 6am to feed Goliath and then shower before school to get the "stink" off, and then get driven to school by Pennyworth for half 8 and then surround himself with plebeians for 7 hours before getting driven back from school by Pennyworth, then down to the stables to train and feed and do whatever jobs he hadn't done in the morning, and then dinner, and then patrol until whatever time Father brought them home. He fell into bed and slept like the dead until his alarm went off at quarter to six. It was never enough sleep, but who in the world was going to notice? Certainly not Ffather, who only rarely had the time in the day to look at his face without a mask. Not his brothers, absent in mind and body. Not his teachers or classmates, who all had similarly deep bags under their eyes. And besides, it was worth it, the exhaustion, because Damian and Goliath were finally making progress. Stephan was almost pleased with them at their last lesson, and had suggested a competition to announce themselves to the world. “Just a small one,” he had promised, “no need to be nervous.”

Nervous. Hah. What a joke. Damian had never been nervous a day in his life.

His hands were sweaty, but it was a hot day - nothing at all to do with his upcoming competition. Training took priority and the exercise made him sweat even in cold weather, which late spring was not, and his hands definitely were not slipping on the reins. Surely not. What a ludicrous suggestion. There was nothing to be nervous about and he had all the time in the world.

He did not have all the time in the world. A week from competition day, entries submitted and test sheet printed, Damian abruptly realised that he was not prepared. It was perhaps the first and only time in his life that this had occurred. His test sheet remained in the bottom of his desk; he had not checked the start times or list of entrants since entries had closed; he had not given Father or Pennyworth directions to the venue. He hadn’t even checked the rule book. And this was where he came unstuck because Damian, in all his reckless bullheadedness, had disregarded even the most basic rules of dress. He had jodhpurs and boots and gloves and that was enough, yes? Evidently not.

At the level he would be riding at, tailcoats like what were seen on TV were not only avoided, they were outright prohibited. Likewise, there were strict rules about the colour of the jodhpurs and gloves and shirts he was allowed to wear. He needed a special kind of jacket, boots and chaps, or else tall boots that took months to break in. None of these he currently owned, and a week was far too short a time to procure them. No tailor worth his price would agree to a show jacket made and altered in under a week, and the boots Damian knew from experience would take far longer than expected to get used to. Could he wear his Robin boots? He didn’t see why not. They were, after all, the least recognisable part of his costume, and ticked all the boxes: large enough heel, tall, black leather, provided the correct support. He would raise it with Father after a good patrol, he thought.

The jacket was more of a problem, and Damian began scouring the rules for some kind of loophole, spending hours that he did not have looking for something that did not exist. He wondered if League dress would count as cultural attire for the sake of this. As little as he wanted to remind himself of those times, the clothing still fit and it might as well be useful rather than collecting dust and mothballs in his closet. Surely a tailor could alter the outer robe to look like a short jacket given a week to work with.

They could, as it turned out, and Damian soon had a beautiful coat to wear. Emerald green and smooth as silk, it was a perfect fit. One problem down, so many more to go. He consulted the rulebook again and ordered some jodhpurs in a pleasing cream colour. He already owned gloves, because he valued his hands far too much to damage them being an idiot and dragging Goliath around without something to protect them. He practiced his test over and over and over again, until Father or Grayson no longer had to stand at the fence and call it for him, and he could see the pattern in his sleep. He memorised everything he could, read the rulebook cover to cover, checked his tack, his dress, trotted Goliath up to ensure he was not lame, found a blue ribbon to indicate that Goliath was a ‘stallion’ and to be avoided, though he couldn’t imagine many people venturing close to him.

And then the morning came. Stephan rattled up the driveway before most of the manor’s inhabitants were awake with a large horsebox and invited himself in for coffee. Then, it was time to groom, boot up, and put Goliath on the box.

Goliath did not want to go on the box.

This was entirely understandable but still frustrating.

“I thought you said you were prepared,” Stephan fumed. Damian said nothing, just tugged on the leadrope once more and offered Goliath’s favourite snack. Goliath did not move. He continued to not move until Stephan grabbed a nearby broom and swatted him gently on the hindquarters, upon which Goliath shot up the ramp like he’d been lit on fire. It was an alarmingly effective method.

They pulled into a large grassy field and parked beneath a spreading tree. His excitement growing, Damian hopped out of the truck and, as he made his way around to lower the ramp, caught sight of the warming up arena. Everything seemed to stop, just for a moment, as he watched the pristine horses prancing. He had wanted to prove everyone wrong, show them that anyone can do dressage, but now… he found he did not want to take Goliath out of the truck, did not want to get on and join the other competitors. He was not unprepared, was the thing; Stephan had said that he was “as ready as you’ll ever be,” which was high praise from him, and Damian had memorised the test, brushed Goliath until he gleamed, polished his tack and boots and mutilated his League clothing to make dressage-legal attire. He was more than ready for this. But he suddenly felt very small and very scruffy, when faced with all these people on much more typical specimens. It struck him then, with all the force of Killer Croc on a rampage, that he was not going to win this competition.

Stephan saw him staring, and stood next to him. He said nothing, but Damian knew he could see his uncertainty on his face.

“They are all much better than me,” he said, quietly.

“If you think that, you’ve already lost,” Stephan replied. “Now get that beast of yours off the wagon and tacked up. We’re on a schedule and your dawdling is going to put us behind.”

Damian lowered the ramp.

His nerves followed him through tacking up, through signing in at the secretary’s office, through the walk to the warm up arena, and would not let him be. His hands did not shake - they never did - but his knees had no such restrictions. They twitched, as if a nerve had been trapped or a reflex had been tripped, and Damian could only hope it would not have an effect on his aids. In the warm up ring, near every horse was driven wild by Goliath’s approach. It did not make him grin, but it did make him wonder if, maybe, he stood a chance after all. It was not a very sportsmanlike thought but then, Damian was not always a very sportsmanlike person. He ignored them, the shouts and whinnies and stamping feet, and mounted. Goliath blew air through his nostrils and reached his head round to look at Damian. Really, he seemed to say, you’re making me put up with this. Damian rolled his eyes. Such drama.

The thing about horses is that they are cowards but they are equally forgetful, and so within a few minutes, the warm up arena was back to normal. This unfortunately meant Damian had to pretend to ignore his fellow competitors riding perfect canter circles and square halts for far longer, but also meant that none of them were looking at him. This was, he thought, a positive, considering he had very little idea what he was doing and was trying his utmost to hide it. Twenty minutes later, Stephan was calling him to the gate. Damian took a breath and did not stiffen. He was the combined strength of both his families. Damian Al-Ghul Wayne did not get nervous; he did not tremble or stiffen or gulp; he was completely unfazed - cool as a cucumber, as Grayson would put it. He rode into the ring, white boards gleaming and banners fluttering lightly, and stayed carefully still and poised. First impressions counted here more than anything. He held Goliath in something akin to collection: neck arched, feet picked up cleanly, ears flicking back and forth. He saw the judge look up, do a double-take, stop speaking to her writer, leave the box. Damian did stiffen then.

“Young man,” she called, voice tremulous. She was an elderly woman, Damian noted, evidently with many years of experience. Stephan had seen her name listed as the judge and nodded, saying she would be fair. Not kind, but fair. Damian was as grateful for it as he was confused.

“I am afraid I may have to disqualify you under DR119 section 1, if you do not provide me with some kind of identification. I am not certain that your mount is, in fact, a horse.” Damian was lucky. Damian had prepared for exactly this scenario. He turned to her and said, voice far more level than he was expecting,

“My coach has Goliath’s passport to hand. If that does not suffice, please be aware that your stated rule declares that dressage classes are open to ‘horses, mules and/or ponies of any origin’, and that ‘a horse is an animal over 148 cm without shoes, and 149 cm with shoes.’ Thus, as Goliath is over 148cm without shoes, and is an animal, he is a horse.”

“That,” she blustered, clearly trying and failing to regain her composure, “is completely besides the point.” She then stalked over to where Stephan was standing, hands on her hips ready to give him a piece of her mind. After a few moments of wild gesticulation, she returned to the judge’s box without so much as a glance in Damian’s direction. Goliath flicked an ear and snorted. It was the first time in a long time that he had been actively ignored. People being scared of him? Pretty par for the course. People wanting to cuddle him? Weird but sweet; Damian could relate. Ignoring entirely? Goliath wasn’t the only one to take that as an insult. He leaned forward and scratched the fluff behind his ears, just the way he knew Goliath liked it.

“Let’s go show her how it’s done, hmm boy?”

The sun was in his eyes as he rode down the centre line. He tried not to squint, while also smiling, because he’d already ruined his first impression and whatever he could salvage by smiling was worth it. The combination of the sun, the smile, and the squinting most likely resulted in a pained grimace instead, but an attempt was made. He turned right, kept trotting, held himself steady, felt Goliath’s mouth down the reins, his muscles flexing beneath his legs. He squeezed with his right leg and opened his left rein to bend onto a twenty-metre circle. He changed the rein across the diagonal and held Goliath in as he tried to plunge his way across the arena. Another circle. Another change of rein. He gently heaved on the reins and Goliath came back to a walk. Lumbering and laborious, tThey made their way around the ring, and it became worse as Damian released his hold on the reins for a free walk. Goliath was not good at free walk; they had not practiced and Goliath did not have the long and elegant neck of the fancy dressage horses. He tried, and Damian tried, but it was never going to be perfect and this was worse than usual. Damian was relieved when the time came to trot again. Picking up his reins and trying to hold Goliath in some kind of shape, he squeezed him into a trot that had at least a little swing, before asking for a canter. It had come up very quickly, and the movements within the gait would only come more quickly still. A circle, up the long side, another circle, return to trot over the centre line. Breathe, Damian, you have survived. Time to change the rein and once again hold Goliath back, then repeat the canter movement again. By the time the canter was over, Damian was so tight that he was almost almost trembling with exertion. Now, however, was the final centre line. Damian needed to smile again, he needed to pull himself together, except the turn was coming up far too quickly and…

He overshot it by maybe a metre, and salvaged the line by hauling on his inside rein. It pulled Goliath off balance, but he at least made it to the centre line. After a scrambled, embarrassed, halt-immobility-salute, Damian gave Goliath a pat on the neck and removed himself from the arena. He dared not look at Stephan’s face; he dared not think about the scores.

It took far too long and not long enough for the scores to be out. Long enough to have lunch, certainly, long enough to receive a thorough tongue-lashing from Stephan, not long enough to redeem himself.

Sixty-three percent.

That was… Damian wanted to say it was terrible, but looking at the scoreboard he was, surprisingly, far from last place. Out of a field of about ten, he was solidly middle of the pack. Fourth was not where he had wanted to be, was not an acceptable position, but when put up against what he had seen in the warm-up? Those beautiful, elegant animals performing like it was the Olympics themselves? Fourth place was not so bad really.

It did not matter what he tried to tell himself. Fourth place was not going to be showing anyone anything about his, or Goliath’s, ability. It would not win him any ribbons or championship qualifications. It was just…in the middle. Average. Average was not good enough, when you were Damian Wayne.

They drove home in silence. Damian had nothing to say, and Stephan had got his disappointment in Damian’s performance out of the way early. There was nothing he could say that Damian had not already told himself. He was disappointed, yes, but also furious, also confused, also mortified. From birth, he had been the very best: the best heir, the best son, the best Robin. And now he was merely average. It wasn’t that he hadn’t tried: he’d tried so hard, practiced so much, been as prepared for this as Drake had to be for patrol, but it had amounted to nothing. The entire hour drive, not a word was spoken, and it felt stifling.

At home, Father hung the green ribbon in pride of place and Pennyworth picked out all the positives on the scoresheet Damian had been too outraged to look at and Grayson demanded to see the professional photos that had not yet been made available. Drake, on his way out the door, patted his shoulder and said “better luck next time, squirt,” as if Damian were a normal little brother and not a trained vigilante who could kill him five different ways with just his shoelaces. It grated on him, that they were being so positive when something was wrong, when he had done nothing to deserve their praise.

He had done badly, there was no kind way to say it, except Grayson told him well done for trying and Pennyworth thanked him for coming home with no broken bones or lacerations and Father? Father had smiled that small, secret smile that was just for Damian and said he was proud of him. Why? There was nothing to be proud of, no congratulations to give. Commiserations may be the more prudent action. But Father was proud, and Damian wanted so badly to accept that without thinking about it that he ached.

Another week, another lesson, and this time Damian had read the scoresheet and knew exactly what he needed to work on. Except that wasn’t what Stephan wanted to work on.

“Rounder!” he barked, “rounder, more hand…not like that - I said rounder, not slower, are you deaf?” Damian, feeling Goliath fight and pull against his hands, feeling him chomping uncomfortably on hard metal, found that he hated Stephan a bit. This was not what they needed to work on and it was making Goliath unhappy and Damian wasn’t particularly happy either.

He did not ask Stephan to come back the next week.

Without Stephan, he drifted a bit. He practiced what he knew, worked hard on the things he thought he needed to work on, but he had no goals in mind. Goliath seemed happier, and that was important to him, more important than ribbons, but still that score grated on him, that fourth place ribbon. He didn’t want it to end like that, but he refused to go crawling back to Stephan and admit defeat. Stephan was wrong, and Damian would prove it…somehow.

#batfam big bang 2023 #batfam #fanfic #damian wayne #working title: usef rules are bullshit #dressage #goliath dc #fluff #light angst #lots of emotions #look the title is from an edith piaf song that is the most dressage song of all time #just trust me

7 notes · View notes

leiawritesstories · 2 years

Text

dancing on eggshells

"And now for something completely different..."

i just...really needed to get this out. feel free to ignore. probably going to delete later.

1212 words

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

it’s not supposed to be like this

it’s not supposed to be so hard

I love being here. I love the unburdened way I can be myself here, the independence and freedom that comes from being at college 1300 miles away from home. I love being unencumbered by the rules and restrictions and rigidities of home, the expectations that crash and collide and contradict and counteract each other.

Go out with your friends, you don’t see them nearly enough. But you have to be home by eleven and you have to tell us every single little detail or we won’t allow you to be out.

You’re working too much, you don’t need to be taking so many hours, it’s not like you have rent to pay. But why are you only working four shifts this week, don’t you know you have to save up for going to study abroad?

Eat food. Eat regular meals. But just so you know, your clothes don’t fit like they used to, and since you’re so close to twenty, you really need to be thinking about what you eat.

Get off your computer, we never even see you anymore. But why are you plaguing me with questions, don’t you have things to do before you move back to school?

Always “back to school,” never “back to college.” Always “staying at school,” never “moving onto campus.” Always “it’s called school,” always the overhanging “why do you insist on being so far away?”

it’s because i fucking need to

I love being far away from home. I love having the freedom to live the way I want to live.

To just live, really.

I’m so tired of being the middle ground. I’m so tired of being pulled in all directions as the fight rages around me, of all the voices insisting they’re in the right, of all the clamor and noise and demands and complaints and venting and ranting and raging and raving and the call, always the call, to listen and listen and listen and tell them they’re right, to sooth the jagged edges, to bridge the depthless chasm.

I mediate anyway.

How else will they learn? How else will they ever get through to each other?

How else will the constant cloud of bitterness that hovers over the place ever dissipate?

I don’t want it to fall in a thunderstorm, but that’s what I’m afraid has to happen. There’s too much buildup in the clouds, too much threatened and withheld rain, too much electricity charging the air for it to end in anything other than destruction,

With any luck, all I can do is limit the damages.

I’m torn between the warring powers who claim they’re doing the right thing for the right reasons and are willing to go to any lengths not to listen to the counterargument. I love my parents. I love my sister. I love them with everything I am.

it’s because I love them that I silence my pain and step into the storm once again

They do not need to know how much it hurts to see them constantly at war.

They need someone to listen to the arguments and the reasonings and the raging emotions and the mess of “i’m-right-because-they’re-wrong” and layers upon layers of defensive lashings-out and they need someone to tell them to shut up and listen every once in a while. I know the concept is a foreign one, but it’s necessary. Absolutely necessary. I can’t bear seeing the whole house deflated because we’re all dancing on eggshells around our hair-trigger matriarch, tiptoeing across ice around our silently steaming sister, slinking through shadows around the armed-and-ready explosion that we all know is inevitable.

So I lock away what I yearn to say. I lock away the part of me that wants to scream and cry and rage and break things. And I reach out a mediator’s hand to both parties, draw them apart for a moment of reprieve, give them a space and a chance to let loose the torrent of what they want to say.

I listen.

Every time, I listen.

I listen to the hopes and fears and dreams and terrors of having another child preparing to go off to college, all the ways she’s similar and different and unlike any of the rest of us because out of all the children my parents bore, she’s always been the most stubborn. I listen to the rambling tale of how they’re only trying to posit ideas and encourage options that they either didn’t have or didn’t know about but don’t want their kids to miss “but she just sits there mute and won’t even acknowledge us.”

I listen to the eagerness and nerves and wonder and anticipation and apprehension and terror of being a senior in high school, all the things everyone’s suddenly piling onto her because she’s getting ready to apply for college and then get acceptances and then choose a college and then go to said college and the sheer volume of it all never stops increasing. I listen to the meandering story of how she’s trying to process everything all at once while knowing what kind of program she wants to enter and “it’s like they won’t even acknowledge that I’m responding because I don’t speak in their terms.”

I listen to the people I love fighting about the stupidest fucking shit and I long--oh, how I long--to scream that they’re all so buried in their own desperate desire to communicate that they’ve built their own walls even thicker.

I offer whatever bits of comfort I have within me. I weave together what I know they want to hear and what I want to say and what the other side wants them to hear and I try and try and try and try some more to slide even the smallest sliver of accord into the disjointed mess of an argument that’s been going on for so damn long they hardly even know why they’re arguing anymore.

Nobody ever said it would be easy.

And it isn’t.

But even if it’s the only thing I ever do, even if I spend the rest of my days trapped within the endless war that everyone’s too stubborn to end in truce or stalemate, if I manage to slide even the smallest hint of shared accord across enemy lines, then my work will not have been in vain.

It’s not supposed to be like this.

Families aren’t supposed to rip the house apart when two or three can’t see eye to eye, we’re supposed to talk and listen and work through trials and errors and new experiences and stress together. We’re supposed to be able to at least pretend we love and care about each other even when we’re not pleased with something someone else has done.

I shouldn’t have to be the only thing standing between my sister and my parents and utter destruction. I shouldn’t have to feel so torn when I hear that the college discussion isn’t going like they want it to go.

But I do. I just do.

So I tie on my slippers and dance on the eggshells, hoping and hoping and hoping that what I do won’t be done in vain.

#my writing #first person? what?#it's basically a brain dump #feel free to ignore #probably gonna delete it anyway #delete later #journal entry of sorts #lots of emotions

13 notes · View notes