#mom said it's my turn on the coping strategies and by GOD am i forcing us all to get all 31 endings in AHWM ok!! HFHDJFJDJF

[euclydya]

ok how long is it gonna take to get all these endings. let's go

[ficdirectory]

Blink (An AU Fosters family fic) Chapter 9

CHAPTER 9

The door opens, and Jesus is face to face with Jude.

“Dude.  Are you okay?” he asks in a hushed voice.  But it’s more than that.  He’s tense.  The whole cabin is crackling with tension.

“Yeah…” Jesus hedges.  “I’m fine.  Why?”

“Because Moms are freaking out.  So just a heads-up,” he says, keeping his voice down.  Jude leads the way into the kitchen, where Moms are rushing around.

“Honey, sit down.”

“I can’t sit down, Lena.  Our son is missing.  I can’t believe no one’s seen him since this afternoon!  I told him to go inside!”

“I know.  You told me.  And I thought he was with you outside.  He’ll show up.  We can’t panic, Stef.”

“We can’t?  Well, I sure as hell am, Lena.  It’s been five hours and no one has seen Jesus.  Do you remember the last time this happened?  It wasn’t nothing!”

“I’m going to check outside again,” Lena says.

“Good news!  I found him!” Jude announces, his voice forced and bright.  He’s trying to will the energy in the house to something more positive.  Jesus can sense it.  Even before Moms turn, he can tell their nerves are fried.

Mom sees Jesus first.  Rushes to him.  Grabs him too hard.  Holds on.  “My God, Jesus!  Are you okay?  Where were you?”

He’s breathless this close to her panic.  Enveloped in it.  Held without consent, and too hard, and everything is blurry.  She lets go, and asks again, right in his face - in his space - all he can see is her fear.

“Where were you?” she insists, holding onto him by the arms.

His brain’s stalled.  All the great calming effects of Pearl’s cabin, and Pearl herself, and her hot chocolate and Dr. H. are evaporating.  He grinds out the only word in his head:  “Out.”

Mom’s eyes darken.  Jesus realizes his mistake too late.  She thinks this one word is him giving attitude when really it’s the only one that came when he thought of being literally stuck outside.

“Really?” she asks, not impressed at all.

She crosses her arms as he shrugs out of his jacket and hangs it up.  

“Talk to us, Jesus,” Mama tries when he comes back.  “Mom said you told her you were coming inside when you changed your mind about snowmobiling.”

“Hours ago!” Mom interjects.

“And I tried!” he insists, anxiety making his own voice more intense.  He backs up until he’s against a wall.

“What does that mean?” Mama asks.

“Trying isn’t good enough, Jesus!” Mom snaps.  “Not when you give me your word you’ll do something.”

“Oh, my God.  It wasn’t that deep, okay?  I said I’d try!  I never said I’d do it!”  He crosses his arms.  (His words keep coming out all wrong.  He keeps leaving out important ones.  Needs to make it clear it wasn’t a choice.  That he couldn’t come in.  Not that he was trying to freak them out.)

“Don’t play semantics right now, Jesus.  It’s not helpful.”  Mama warns.  She turns to the rest of the sibs in the living room:  “Guys, Mom and I need to speak with Jesus privately.  Go upstairs, please.”

Jesus doesn’t know what playing semantics means, but he needs to do something.  He can feel himself losing control and he needs to do whatever the next right thing is that can help himself calm down.  He thinks about Dr. H.  About coping strategies.  Maybe now that it’s just him and Moms they can do Porch Time at the table like this morning.  Another word flies out of his mouth, unchecked:

“Time!”

“Jesus, we’re trying to talk to you.  This is very serious,” Mama says.

He slides down the wall until he’s sitting on the floor, all while Mom is pacing and yelling at him.

“I don’t understand where this is coming from!  You still haven’t told us where you were!  Did it ever occur to you that we have trauma, too?  That one of the things that is the most difficult for us is not knowing where you are?  You know better than this, Jesus!”

Jesus tries one more time, though his body’s already moving.  Rocking.  “Porch Time,” he manages in a flat voice.  He can’t take their blame.  It’s everything he’s already thought.  For years, he blamed himself for being such a dumbass and getting in That Car when he knew better.

He did know better.  This whole thing, his own pain, his family’s, it’s all on him.  He’s the worst.

“We are talking to you right now, Jesus,” Mom says.  Hands on her hips. Strained voice.  Anger, barely controlled.

Jesus rocks his body back, hard, against the wall.  He hates himself and they hate him and he did this and they’re not listening and he can’t go home.  He’s not safe.

Mom covers her mouth.  The thing she does when he embarrasses her.  Behind her hand, she mumbles, “You are something else…”

“Stef, no,” Mama cautions.

She tries to get Jesus’s attention.  “Mom didn’t mean it, Jesus.  She didn’t know.”

He can barely hear her, because of the rocking.  Because of his head and his back hitting the wall over and over and over and over.  He can’t stop.  He’s here but he’s not because he’s disappearing.  Because he knows that Something Else means he can’t be here.  Because it’s gonna hurt and he’s gonna wish he could die.  But he won’t actually.  He’ll just be afraid that he will until it stops and a long time after, too.  The rocking is a thing he did when he was chained.  A futile kind of escaping.  It feels exactly like that now.  He’s not chained.  But it feels like he is.

“Don’t coddle him, Lena.  He’s got to learn that he can’t control situations by acting out like this.  Jesus.  You need to stop.  Right now.  This is not going to get you what you want.  You just have to accept that you messed up.”

The words echo in his head.  It’s his fault.  His fault.  He did it all.  He got in That Car.  He stayed gone when he could have escaped.  He didn’t do what he promised Mom he would and now everything’s messed up.  Because of him.  He hurt his family.  What’s the point of being here if he’s just going to keep hurting them?  Better to disappear inside his head.  That’s always better.

The wall’s still there.  The rhythm’s still there.  The pain’s still there.  All of it is predictable.  All of it is because of him.  He’s building up his armor.  His tolerance.  So he’ll be able to handle Something Else.  If...when...it happens again. (He’s not safe here.  It’s not home.  Why should he have thought he’d really be okay?)

He rocks harder.

Harder.

Harder.

--

“Brandon, come down here, please!”  

Mama.  

He pauses for only a second, trying to think about if there’s any way Jesus dropping off the face of the earth for five hours could possibly be blamed on him.  Then, her tone registers.  She sounds like this is a big deal.

Brandon forgets about saving his own ass and rushes down the stairs and into the kitchen.  He sees immediately what the problem is:

Jesus, bashing the hell out of his head, looking totally out of it.  Blank.  It makes Brandon’s stomach sink.  He’s seen this before.  When Jesus first got back, it happened a couple times, but back then Mom was always the one to intervene.  She could, because Jesus had been the size of a ten-year-old then, and she could handle him.  She’d just slide him away from the wall and hold onto him and talk to him until he came back to himself.  Sometimes he fought because he didn’t know what was happening, but he was so small it barely looked like it hurt.

He remembers a couple years ago, how Moms came to him and asked if he would be willing to take over for her now that Jesus was bigger, if this ever happened again.  Brandon had said sure, because he’d been sure that Jesus was okay enough now to manage in other ways.  By then it had been six months since anything happened like that.

But he’s not managing now.  And there’s no way Brandon wants Moms risking trying to physically maneuver Jesus while he’s not actually with it and might lash out or something without meaning to.  Whatever happened to him while he was gone tonight must have been scary as hell if he’s doing this again.

“What do you need me to do?” Brandon asks, his eyes fixed on his brother.  On his face, not registering any of the pain, any of their voices, anything at all.  

“See if you can get a pillow behind him,” Mama coaches.  “I don’t want you to touch him unless you have to.”

Brandon’s already sprinted to the living room and grabbed one of Grandpa’s moose throw pillows from the couch.  He’s back, and crouches beside Jesus.

“Explain what you’re doing.  Be as clear as you can,” Mama insists.

“Hey, I’m just gonna put this pillow behind your head, okay?” Brandon hedges.  He’s nervous as hell.  Mom’s pacing and ranting about regression and self-aggression and how this is some vacation.

“Stef,” Mama says quietly as Brandon contemplates just how to get the pillow in place without touching Jesus.  “Why don’t you take a break?”

“No, I am not taking a break, Lena!  Not when he is like this.  He’s unpredictable...I can handle him if it comes to that.  But I’m not leaving him alone with you.”

Brandon has managed to shove the pillow behind Jesus’s head without touching him, by timing it out just right.  The pianist in him thinks it’s ridiculous that Mom just called Jesus unpredictable.  He’s totally predictable.  The rocking - the head-banging - it has a rhythm.  That might be why he’s doing this in the first place.  It might be better to know what’s coming.  

The pillow falls in seconds, and Brandon picks it up.  Tries putting it back again.  But it falls again.

Moms are still fighting, so Brandon says, “This didn’t work.  But I think I can get behind him.”  He wills his voice not to shake.  He’s the man of the house.  They’re relying on him.  This is what Mom did, kind of.  It’s what needs to happen, probably.  If Brandon comes at Jesus head on, he’s sure it won’t be good.  But from behind, maybe he can just wait Jesus out, taking the pain for him.  (It’s all Brandon’s ever really wanted to do for him, anyway.)

“B, no.  You’re gonna get hurt.  He’s not in control of what he’s doing.” Mom snaps.

“I can do it.  It’s fine,” Brandon says, knowing someone has to do something.  He reaches out and scoots his brother forward, glad for the slippery wood floor.  Jesus slides forward easily enough, and Brandon sits behind him, trying to go with Jesus’s momentum, not against it.  Brandon’s not expecting the force, though, and it almost knocks the wind out of him.

Still, Brandon stays.  Because better him than his brother.  Jesus has had enough pain in his life.  It’s the least Brandon can do.

--

The wall behind Jesus feels different.  It doesn’t feel solid.  He blinks, still rocking hard.

“Brandon, seriously.” Mom is saying, and Jesus can’t breathe.

Brandon.

Behind him.

When Jesus didn’t know.  Didn’t consent.  (They don’t say yes for him, ever.)

His breathing goes from something he’s not even aware he’s doing to too fast and too deep.  “Back up!”  he screams.  “Back up!  Back up!  Back up!”

He can’t think past the panic.  His heart’s beating hard.  Fast.  He can’t stop screaming.  Behind him, Brandon’s scrambling to get away from him.  Jesus can’t stop rocking.  Can’t stop screaming.

Mama comes at him with a pill, and he shakes his head hard.  He can’t deal with somebody else forcing him to do something.  Take something.  The panic means he can’t disappear.  The panic means he has to feel everything all at once.  And it won’t stop.

“Back up!  Back up!  Back up!”

--

When Mariana hears Jesus scream, she doesn’t hesitate.  She doesn’t think.  She runs.  She abandons the game of Candy Land she, Callie, Jude and Frankie are playing in one of the bedrooms and takes the stairs as quick as she can.

She doesn’t know what happened, but Brandon’s looking pale, somehow trapped behind Jesus and Jesus is in full-on fireworks mode.  He can’t stop rocking.

“You guys need to go,” she says.  “I’ve got him.”