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ganymedesclock · 3 years ago

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These are questions I've had for some while and it's hard to find someone who'll answer with grace. This mostly relates to disabilities (mental or physical) in fiction.

1) What makes a portrayal of a disability that's harming the character in question ableist?

2) Is there a way to write a disabled villain in a way that isn't ableist?

In the circles I've been in, the common conceptions are you can't use a character's disability as a plot point or showcase it being a hindrance in some manner. heaven forbid you make your villain disabled in some capacity, that's a freaking death sentence to a creative's image. I understand historically villains were the only characters given disabilities, but (and this is my personal experience) I've not seen as many disabled villains nowadays, heck, I see more disabled heroes in media nowadays.

Sorry if this comes off as abrasive, I'd really like to be informed for future media consumption and my own creative endeavors.

Okay so the first thing I'm going to say is that while it IS a good idea to talk to disabled people and get their feedback, disabled people are not a monolith and they aren't going to all have the same take on how this goes.

My personal take is biased in favor that I'm a neurodivergent person (ADHD and autism) who has no real experience with physical disabilities, so I won't speak for physically disabled people- heck, I won't even speak for every neurotype. Like I say, people aren't a monolith.

For myself and my own writing of disabled characters, here's a couple of concepts I stick by:

Research is your friend

Think about broad conventions of ableism

Be mindful of cast composition

1. Research is your friend

Yeah this is the thing everybody says, so here's the main bases I try to cover:

What's the story on this character's disability?

Less in terms of 'tragic angst' and more, what kind of condition this is- because a congenital amputee (that is to say, someone who was born without a limb) will have a different relationship to said limb absence than someone who lost their limb years ago to someone who lost their limb yesterday. How did people in their life respond to it, and how did they respond to it? These responses are not "natural" and will not be the same to every person with every worldview. This can also be a great environment to do worldbuilding in! Think about the movie (and the tv series) How To Train Your Dragon. The vikings in that setting don't have access to modern medicine, and they're, well, literally fighting dragons and other vikings. The instance of disability is high, and the medical terminology to talk about said disabilities is fairly lackluster- but in a context where you need every man you possibly can to avoid the winter, the mindset is going to be not necessarily very correct, but egalitarian. You live in a village of twenty people and know a guy who took a nasty blow to the head and hasn't quite been the same ever since? "Traumatic Brain Injury" is probably not going to be on your lips, but you're also probably going to just make whatever peace you need to and figure out how to accommodate Old Byron for his occasional inability to find the right word, stammers and trembles. In this example, there are several relevant pieces of information- what the character's disability is (aphasia), how they got it (brain injury), and the culture and climate around it (every man has to work, and we can't make more men or throw them away very easily, so, how can we make sure this person can work even if we don't know what's wrong with them)

And that dovetails into:

What's the real history, and modern understandings, of this?

This is where "knowing the story" helps a lot. To keep positing our hypothetical viking with a brain injury, I can look into brain injuries, what affects their extent and prognosis, and maybe even beliefs about this from the time period and setting I'm thinking of (because people have had brains, and brain injuries, the entire time!) Sure, if the setting is fantastical, I have wiggle room, but looking at inspirations might give me a guide post.

Having a name for your disorder also lets you look for posts made by specific people who live with the condition talking about their lives. This is super, super important for conditions stereotyped as really scary, like schizophrenia or narcissistic personality disorder. Even if you already know "schizophrenic people are real and normal" it's still a good thing to wake yourself up and connect with others.

2. Think about broad conventions of ableism

It CAN seem very daunting or intimidating to stay ahead of every single possible condition that could affect someone's body and mind and the specific stereotypes to avoid- there's a lot under the vast umbrella of human experience and we're learning more all the time! A good hallmark is, ableism has a few broad tendencies, and when you see those tendencies rear their head, in your own thinking or in accounts you read by others, it's good to put your skeptical glasses on and look closer. Here's a few that I tend to watch out for:

Failing the “heartwarming dog” test

This was a piece of sage wisdom that passed my eyeballs, became accepted as sage wisdom, and my brain magnificently failed to recall where I saw it. Basically, if you could replace your disabled character with a lovable pet who might need a procedure to save them, and it wouldn’t change the plot, that’s something to look into.

Disability activists speak often about infantilization, and this is a big thing of what they mean- a lot of casual ableism considers disabled people as basically belonging to, or being a burden onto, the able-bodied and neurotypical. This doesn’t necessarily even need to have an able neurotypical in the picture- a personal experience I had that was extremely hurtful was at a point in high school, I decided to do some research on autism for a school project. As an autistic teenager looking up resources online, I was very upset to realize that every single resource I accessed at the time presumed it was talking to a neurotypical parent about their helpless autistic child. I was looking for resources to myself, yet made to feel like I was the subject in a conversation.

Likewise, many wheelchair users have relayed the experience of, when they, in their chair, are in an environment accompanied by someone else who isn’t using a chair, strangers would speak to the standing person exclusively, avoiding addressing the chair user.

It’s important to always remind yourself that at no point do disabled people stop being people. Yes, even people who have facial deformities; yes, even people who need help using the bathroom; yes, even people who drool; yes, even people whose conditions impact their ability to communicate, yes, even people with cognitive disabilities. They are people, they deserve dignity, and they are not “a child trapped in a 27-year-old body”- a disabled adult is still an adult. All of the “trying to learn the right rules” in the world won’t save you if you keep an underlying fear of non-normative bodies and minds.

This also has a modest overlap between disability and sexuality in particular. I am an autistic grayromantic ace. Absolutely none of my choices or inclinations about sex are because I’m too naive or innocent or childlike to comprehend the notion- disabled people have as diverse a relationship with sexuality as any other. That underlying fear- as mentioned before- can prevent many people from imagining that, say, a wheelchair user might enjoy sex and have experience with it. Make sure all of your disabled characters have full internal worlds.

Poor sickly little Tiffany and the Red Right Hand

A big part of fictional ableism is that it separates the disabled into two categories. Anybody who’s used TVTropes would recognize the latter term I used here. But to keep it brief:

Poor, sickly little Tiffany is cute. Vulnerable. How her disability affects her life is that it constantly creates a pall of suffering that she lives beneath. After all, having a non-normative mind or body must be an endless cavalcade of suffering and tragedy, right? People who are disabled clearly spend their every waking moment affected by, and upset, that they aren’t normal!

The answer is... No, actually. Cut the sad violin; even people who have chronic pain who are literally experiencing pain a lot more than the rest of us are still fully capable of living complex lives and being happy. If nothing else, it would be literally boring to feel nothing but awful, and people with major depression or other problems still, also, have complicated experiences. And yes, some of it’s not great. You don’t have to present every disability as disingenuously a joy to have. But make a point that they own these things. It is a very different feeling to have a concerned father looking through the window at his angel-faced daughter rocking sadly in her wheelchair while she stares longingly out the window, compared to a character waking up at midnight because they have to go do something and frustratedly hauling their body out of their bed into their chair to get going.

Poor Sickly Little Tiffany (PSLT, if you will) virtually always are young, and they virtually always are bound to the problems listed under ‘failing the heartwarming dog’ test. Yes, disabled kids exist, but the point I’m making here is that in the duality of the most widely accepted disabled characters, PSLT embodies the nadir of the Victim, who is so pure, so saintly, so gracious, that it can only be a cruel quirk of fate that she’s suffering. After all, it’s not as if disabled people have the same dignity that any neurotypical and able-bodied person has, where they can be an asshole and still expect other people to not seriously attack their quality of life- it’s a “service” for the neurotypical and able-bodied to “humor” them.

(this is a bad way to think. Either human lives matter or they don’t. There is no “wretched half-experience” here- if you wouldn’t bodily grab and yank around a person standing on their own feet, you have no business grabbing another person’s wheelchair)

On the opposite end- and relevant to your question- is the Red Right Hand. The Red Right Hand does not have PSLT’s innocence or “purity”- is the opposite extreme. The Red Right Hand is virtually always visually deformed, and framed as threatening for their visual deformity. To pick on a movie I like a fair amount, think about how in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, the title character is described- “Strong. Fast. Had a metal arm.” That’s a subtle example, but, think about how that metal arm is menacing. Sure, it’s a high tech weapon in a superhero genre- but who has the metal arm? The Winter Soldier, who is, while a tormented figure that ultimately becomes more heroic- scary. Aggressive. Out for blood.

The man who walks at midnight with a Red Right Hand is a signal to us that his character is foul because of the twisting of his body. A good person, we are led to believe, would not be so- or a good person would be ashamed of their deformity and work to hide it. The Red Right Hand is not merely “an evil disabled person”- they are a disabled person whose disability is depicted as symptomatic of their evil, twisted nature, and when you pair this trope with PSLT, it sends a message: “stay in your place, disabled people. Be sad, be consumable, and let us push you around and decide what to do with you. If you get uppity, if you have ideas, if you stand up to us, then the thing that made you a helpless little victim will suddenly make you a horrible monster, and justify us handling you with inhumanity.”

As someone who is a BIG fan of eldritch horror and many forms of unsettling “wrongness” it is extremely important to watch out for the Red Right Hand. Be careful how you talk about Villainous Disability- there is no connection between disability and morality. People will be good, bad, or simply just people entirely separate from their status of ability or disability. It’s just as ableist to depict every disabled person as an innocent good soul as it is to exclusively deal in grim and ghastly monsters.

Don’t justify disabilities and don’t destroy them.

Superpowers are cool. Characters can and IMO should have superpowers, as long as you’re writing a genre when they’re there.

BUT.

It’s important to remember that there is no justification for disabilities, because they don’t need one. Disability is simply a feature characters have. You do not need to go “they’re blind, BUT they can see the future”

This is admittedly shaky, and people can argue either way; the Blind Seer is a very pronounced mythological figure and an interesting philosophical point about what truly matters in the world. There’s a reason it exists as a conceit. But if every blind character is blind in a way that completely negates that disability or makes it meaningless- this sucks. People have been blind since the dawn of time. And people will always accommodate their disabilities in different ways. Even if the technology exists to fix some forms of blindness, there are people who will have “fixable” blindness and refuse to treat it. There will be individuals born blind who have no meaningful desire to modify this. And there are some people whose condition will be inoperable even if it “shouldn’t” be.

You don’t need to make your disabled characters excessively cool, or give them a means by which the audience can totally forget they’re disabled. Again, this is a place where strong worldbuilding is your buddy- a handwave of “x technology fixed all disabilities”, in my opinion, will never come off good. If, instead, however, you throw out a careless detail that the cool girl the main character is chatting up in a cyberpunk bar has an obvious spinal modification, and feature other characters with prosthetics and without- I will like your work a lot, actually. Even if you’re handing out a fictional “cure”- show the seams. Make it have drawbacks and pros and cons. A great example of this is in the series Full Metal Alchemist- the main character has two prosthetic limbs, and not only do these limbs come with problems, some mundane (he has phantom limb pains, and has to deal with outgrowing his prostheses or damaging them in combat) some more fantastical (these artificial limbs are connected to his nerves to function fluidly- which means that they get surgically installed with no anesthesia and hurt like fuck plugging in- and they require master engineering to stay in shape). We explicitly see a scene of the experts responsible for said limbs talking to a man who uses an ordinary prosthetic leg, despite the advantages of an automail limb, because these drawbacks are daunting to him and he is happier with a simple prosthetic leg.

Even in mundane accommodations you didn’t make up- no two wheelchair users use their chair the exact same way, and there’s a huge diversity of chairs. Someone might be legally blind but still navigate confidently on their own; they might use a guide dog, or they might use a cane. They might even change their needs from situation to situation!

Disability accommodations are part of life

This ties in heavily to the previous point, but seriously! Don’t just look up one model of cane and superimpose it with no modifications onto your character- think about what their lifestyle is, and what kind of person they are!

Also medication is not the devil. Yes, medical abuse is real and tragic and the medication is not magic fairy dust that solves all problems either. But also, it’s straight ableism to act like anybody needing pills for any reason is a scary edgy plot twist.

(and addiction is a disease. Please be careful, and moreover be compassionate, if you’re writing a character who’s an addict)

3. Be mindful of cast composition

This, to me, is a big tip about disability writing and it’s also super easy to implement!

Just make sure your cast has a lot of meaningful disabled characters in it!

Have you done all the work you can to try and dodge the Red Right Hand but you’re still worried your disabled villain is a bad look? They sure won’t look like a commentary on disability if three other people in the cast are disabled and don’t have the same outlook or role! Worried that you’re PSLT-ing your main character’s disabled child? Maybe the disability is hereditary and they got it from the main character!

The more disabled characters you have, the more it will challenge you to think about what their individual relationship is with the world and the less you’ll rely on hackneyed tropes. At least, ideally.

Ultimately, there’s no perfect silver bullet of diversity writing that will prevent a work from EVER being ableist, but I hope this helped, at least!

#disability #writing ruminations #readmore

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dilkirani · 6 years ago

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Fanfiction request: ://Jemma is pregnant with her second child but their first child (i loved your one with James in it) is jealous. Basically family and domestic life! You’re literally the best writer I swear ❤️

Thank you so much, Anon!

It’s not necessary to read the short fic anon was referencing to understand this, but if you’re interested:

http://dilkirani.tumblr.com/post/159933407005/fitzsimmons-10-if-youre-up-for-it

Thanks to @itsavolcano for the beta! Read below or at AO3:

It’s not that they plan to have only one child, but when James turns two and they decide to try again, it just never happens. There doesn’t seem to be any particular reason, at least none that the doctors can discern. The solutions they suggest involve a lot of money and invasive procedures and shockingly high failure rates, and neither of them wants to put the other through all that.

Jemma cries only once, late at night, three years after they first realize something might be wrong. “I’m so happy with our life,” she insists. “We’ve fought so hard to be here, and I love our family more than anything. But Fitz—”

“I know,” he whispers, brushing a strand of hair from her face and placing a kiss to her forehead. He blinks against the tears filling his own eyes. “I wanted to meet her, too.”

It’s the first time they’ve spoken of it. Even when, months into Jemma’s pregnancy, the doctor had shown them their baby on the monitor and announced they were having a boy, they hadn’t talked about the daughter they’d once had yet never met. When Deke visits, they smile indulgently at the easy way he tosses James in the air, and they don’t talk about his mother. After James inevitably falls asleep sprawled across Deke’s lap, Jemma passes around the Zima they can only brave drinking for their grandson, and they listen delightedly to the adventures he is having on an uncracked Earth. Every time, Fitz swallows back down the question he’s too afraid to ask: Do you resent us for not bringing her back to you? But the question is meaningless because surely Deke knows, like he and Jemma both know, any daughter they might have had in this timeline couldn’t possibly be her.

And yet, all scientific, rational thought aside, there is an ache Fitz is ashamed to feel: a space in his heart carefully carved out for a beautiful baby girl who will grow up to be exactly like her mother. A daughter he knew he would raise before he’d even married. And James, his precious, longed-for child—he worries he has already failed him because in his thoughtful silences and emotional outbursts, Fitz sees himself and the solitary childhood he hadn’t wanted to pass on.

But if wounds never fully heal, they at least stop throbbing. The latest household emergencies involve a very minor burn from James’s unauthorized experiments and having to inform his wife the grocery store is out of her favorite crisps. Every now and then he has to stop for a moment and breathe, because his life is wonderful in a way that still feels like a dream he’s desperate not to wake from.

So when, eight years after James is born, Jemma holds up three positive pregnancy tests, neither his brain nor his body seems to know how to react. He remains rooted by their bedroom door, eyes wide and uncomprehending. Her words barely register before he’s already worrying about their age and if this could put Jemma in danger, and yet something completely illogical inside of him pushes all these thoughts away because he knows what this will mean. His arms pull her flush against him and his lips crash into hers and in between his kisses and her laughter all he can say is, “We didn’t lose her. This time we won’t lose her.”

James is an extraordinary child, even disregarding the obvious bias of his grandparents and the entirety of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s inner circle, but they’ve agreed he’s too young for certain truths. He knows his parents used to work for S.H.I.E.L.D. and he knows sometimes they consult on projects that require him to stay far away from the lab, but for now Deke is his uncle, time travel is science fiction, and there never existed a future where he wasn’t free to roam the beautiful Scottish countryside with his doting grandmother.

Fitz and Jemma don’t mean to exclude him as they prepare for their daughter’s arrival. They don’t even realize how their excited whispers might appear to him. They’ve lived their lives all out of order, and someday they will sit down with their children and try to map out time as if it had ever been linear, but for now Fitz places his warm hands on the swell of Jemma’s abdomen and they speak a language no one else has ever understood.

It’s when James throws a spectacular tantrum at the dinner table and announces his intention to move in with Deke that they realize he’s been faking excitement about his sister. Jemma, sicker and more exhausted during this pregnancy than her first, orders him to his room. She doesn’t need to ask Fitz—he’s jumped through holes in the universe for his wife; he can have a conversation with their son.

Fitz has actually done the reading, so he’s prepared for the feelings of jealousy. He’s sure James, unconsciously or not, worries about losing his parents’ undivided attention. Maybe he even thinks they’ll take away his newly reinstated lab privileges in favor of making him help with the baby.

What he isn’t prepared for, what he’s not sure he could ever have prepared for, is the way James sits carefully perched on the edge of his bed, backpack already filled with clothes and his most important belongings, his expression determined.

“You’ll love her more,” James whispers. Tears shine in his eyes, but his face is defiant, and Fitz doesn’t know whether his heart breaks more for the falsehood his son so clearly believes, or that his fiercely open child is trying desperately to hide from him.

For a moment, he doesn’t know how to respond. Even now, the words sometimes jumble in his head and it’s worse when he’s feeling vulnerable, when voices remind him of his failings. He hesitates, closes his eyes, and concentrates on breathing. He practices techniques he’s perfected from years of therapy until he can kneel in front of his son and not fall apart.

James is silent through all of this, and once again Fitz is infinitely grateful they’ve somehow raised a kind boy who always lets him take the time he needs, who holds his hand when it shakes and has never allowed anyone to mock him for the stutter that occasionally resurfaces. He wishes more than anything he could explain to his son properly, but words have never been good enough, even before his brain injury.

Fitz folds him carefully in his arms, surprised as always at how small he still is, how he fits against him, filling cracks he never realized he had until the moment James was born.

“We won’t love her more,” he says softly, lips brushing against his son’s silky curls. “If you’re determined to leave, will you at least take a walk with me first?”

James’s silence stretches for a long moment until finally he nods, shrugging out of Fitz’s embrace. They walk out of the house together, Fitz throwing Jemma a look he hopes is reassuring, and head down the moonlit lane towards the park. He has an almost overwhelming urge to carry him, but James is very against being treated like a baby at the best of times, so instead he links his fingers through his son’s, relieved when he doesn’t pull away.

When they arrive, James dutifully allows himself to be led towards the swingset, and they each take a swing. James twists his slowly, around and around, while Fitz drags a foot through the sand, writing equations and erasing them, destroying the world and recreating it endlessly.

“There’s a lot we haven’t told you,” he says, when he’s sure he can manage it without his voice breaking. “And I’m sorry for that. I really am, and I hope someday you’ll understand why we thought it was for the best.”

James says nothing, leaning his head against the chain and staring at the stars. His fascination with space is both a mirror image of his and Jemma’s and something that continually alarms him. Fitz finds himself constantly pointing out all the beautiful, fascinating things on Earth, but he supposes he can’t expect his son to crave something he’d never lost.

“Maybe this won’t make sense because of that. Or because I can’t explain it well. But your mum and I never thought you could exist. We…we’d been told, we knew we would have a daughter. We prepared for her. We felt like we’d known her for years. But you, we didn’t think we could ever have you.”

James looks over, finally making eye contact and glaring at him in disbelief. “Of course you could have a son. Statistically, pregnancies are slightly more likely to result in males. And even if you had a girl, maybe she wouldn’t actually be a girl, because I was reading about how—”

Fitz cuts him off with a laugh, utterly charmed at the way he really is a mix of himself and Jemma and yet entirely, wonderfully unique. “You’re right,” he acknowledges. “It was silly of us. But I think we both got to a point where we just…didn’t feel we had the right to hope for certain things.”

He sighs, leaning back and letting the swing slowly carry him. “So many terrible things happened. I still…sometimes it’s still hard to talk about. Or think about, honestly. But we made it here, and we found the home we’d always dreamed of. We were so incredibly happy, and it seemed like wishing for anything more was tempting fate.”

James processes this carefully. “Because you’re cursed?” he asks, and Fitz groans.

“I wish your mother hadn’t told you that. I said that one time.”

James looks skeptical, so Fitz pushes forward. “The point is, your very existence was a surprise. The best surprise, really. And I thought I couldn’t possibly have any more love left in me until I met you. This baby is different. We knew a long time ago we might have her, and we will love her so much, but we could never love you less.” Fitz reaches out to grab the chain of James’s swing, halting his son’s rotations and forcing him to meet his eyes. “I promise. If you only ever believe one thing I tell you, please believe this.”

Tears stream down James’s face and Fitz aches to wipe them away, but he waits for his son to make the first move. James hesitates, then steps down from his swing and climbs onto Fitz’s lap. They both barely fit, and the chains press uncomfortably into Fitz’s side when he shifts to give James more room, but he doesn’t care. He can feel tears soaking his shirt, so he wraps his arms around his son, resting his cheek to the top of James’s head and letting the swing sway them back and forth.

He wouldn’t remember this, but Fitz used to bring him here as a baby, when he wouldn’t stop crying and Jemma inevitably collapsed in exhaustion. He would sneak out of the house, eschewing the stroller for Jemma’s wrap, and swing for hours with James on his chest until he fell asleep. The way James burrows into his chest now takes him back to all those years ago. He’s very nearly too big for it to work anymore; this might even be the last time he can comfort his son like this, and the thought causes him to hold James even tighter. He thinks of his own mother, letting her only child leave for the Academy at fifteen, and can’t fathom ever having her strength.

“I always wanted a brother or sister,” he confesses, brushing his fingers through James’s hair. “I was lonely as a kid, until I met your mum.”

“But I’m not lonely,” James insists. “I have you and Mum. And Uncle Deke and tío Mack and tía YoYo and Aunt Daisy. And the kids at school are all right. Liam and I did that project together. It was fun.”

“I know,” Fitz says. “And we’ll always be here for you. But I still think you and your sister could have a great relationship. You just need to give her a chance.”

“Okay,” James sighs, as if he’s agreeing only to appease his father, but Fitz can tell from the way his breathing calms that they’ve turned a corner.

“And I promise,” Fitz continues, “if she’s being annoying and you want to hang out alone, me and you, we will. No questions asked. Okay?”

Fitz can feel James smiling against him. He closes his eyes, enjoying the slightly chilly breeze and the way his son’s quiet puffs of air feather against his neck. He doesn’t particularly want to move, but when he catches himself nearly falling asleep he gently lifts them both up.

“We should head back. Your mum will be worried. Want me to carry you?”

James rolls his eyes. “I’m not a baby.” But he drags his feet, exhaustion causing him to stumble, until finally he tugs at Fitz’s arm, pulling him lower so he can jump on his back. He wraps his arms around Fitz’s neck, resting his head against a shoulder.

“So, are you going to Uncle Deke’s? Or will you stay a little bit longer?”

James tightens his grip and shakes his head. “Maybe later. He never makes me good food anyway.”

Fitz laughs as he turns onto their street. “Your Uncle Deke grew up in a place where they didn’t have many options. It’s left him with an…interesting palate.”

“I don’t like it,” James confesses. “I mean, he lets me eat all the ice cream and candies Mum won’t let me have. That’s nice. But last time we had a box of Twinkies for dinner. He found them in some American store, and they were expired.”

“Great,” Fitz mutters. “I didn’t know Twinkies could actually expire. Let’s not tell your mum any of this, and I’ll have a talk with him next time he comes ‘round, okay?”

“‘Kay,” James agrees.

Fitz thinks he might say something else, but his arms start twitching slightly, the way they always do in sleep. He carries him carefully into their house, into their room where Jemma is wide awake. She’s been trying to read but mostly worrying, he can tell, and she smiles in relief when they walk in.

He sets James carefully down on the bed and steps to the dresser, pulling out his pajamas to change.

“I know,” he says before she can protest. “He’s way too old for this.”

Jemma laughs fondly, tucking the blanket around their son and switching off her lamp. “Yes, and I know it’s not really for him.”

He gives her a sheepish look and she smirks up at him, but her eyes are shimmering and soft. He lies down on the other side of James, turning off his own light and stretching an arm over his son, trailing his fingers down the curve of Jemma’s belly. Of all the impossible things Fitz has experienced in his lifetime, the one that he finds most incredible and unbelievable is the way his universe keeps growing and yet somehow always fits into his arms.

Jemma whispers something reassuring, but sleep is already pulling him under. He’s never been happier or safer than he is right now, his wife’s quiet endearments mingling with the sound of his son’s heartbeat, the feel of his daughter’s movements beneath his palm.

#fitzsimmons #fsfic #fstag #thefitzsimmonsnetwork #leo fitz #jemma simmons #kidfic #mentions of deke #tw: fertility problems #no 5x22 spoilers #wow I just realized I ended this fic basically the same as the other one with James haha #it's like I cosleep with my dog or something #also I have no experience with children sorry #I just wanted Fitz as the SOFTEST DAD which is what I deserved from this season yet was somehow robbed of #reply #rani writes things #Anonymous

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cyrelia-j · 7 years ago

Text

[fic] Invictus IV (Kelas Parmak, past Garak/Parmak)

Which will soon be just Garak/Parmak but don't think it'll stop there because this is going own a pretty dark well. Kidfic turned damn serious, Federation through a warped and bitter lens, and morally bankrupt not nice Garak. This is NOT healthy/cuddly forgiveness Kelim. Written for @guljerry

So for anyone still here, you can catch parts 1, 2, and 3 HERE, HERE, and HERE

Summary: Post Canon Cardassia story (AU from the novels) After The Fire, Kelas Parmak finds himself a father seven times over to orphans left behind keeping an underground clinic and garden going even in this dystopian future. But Vakem Parmak taught him the importance of survival- even if the enemies are his former lover Elim Garak or The Federation itself

This Chapter: Garak is interrogated, though who's really the one with the screws put to them?

Warnings: Language, references to torture, a lot of angst, emotional manipulation, not nice Garak, mental instability

Also you can check my notes on the biology/genders in this AU HERE

There are two things that Kelas Parmak fears most in this world; that’s what Elim Garak would say. Parmak would say that he is afraid for the future, afraid for his children, and perhaps even afraid for the “undesirables” that he treats. Garak would dismiss those as mere worries, not true fear. And perhaps he’s right. There are only two things in this world that can bring Parmak to his knees shaking, screaming, vomiting, blacked out in terror. Those two things are Garak’s eyes and his own reflection.

In Garak’s eyes he sees the souls of the dead that he buried as a child, the lifeless eyes staring at him, some frozen open in horror as he dropped them in the hard ground. He sees the dead coming for him. He sees everyone that he couldn’t save, those who cursed him as a monster, as a harbinger of death. And they always come for him, raging angrily in his head, reaching out from the cold slits of Garak’s pupils. Kelas still dreams of those eyes at night, waking up with a scream dead in his throat, unable to breathe. Before he looked in Garak’s eyes he might have said that there was nothing that he was afraid of. It was easier to forget about the mirror. The mirror had stopped haunting his dreams when the plague came.

Before the plague, there was only one true fear that Parmak held. When he was a child, his mother told him that he was beautiful. She told him that he was precious and perfectly made as he was. In spite of the rest of the village speaking of him and his family with pity for such a poor child, in spite of the taunts of his appearance - his white hair, his “pink little vole eyes”, his “sickening skin”, his “gross” hump - he had never considered his appearance one way or the other. He could breathe, he could move, and he could feel the warmth of the lamps they used to light their camp. He was also born with poor vision that had gone undiagnosed until his sixth year.

Before that he could see the shapes well enough to get by though the world still shook out of focus from time to time. He tried to express it but didn’t understand what was wrong to verbalize. But eventually there came a time when he didn’t need to- when his parents understood what was wrong with him. He never understood the reality of his physical “corruption” as they called it until he happened to glimpse himself once in a large bucket of captured precious rainwater. He had seen the collected water before but this was the first time that he’d though to peer at it closely, the light that day hitting it just right to reflect.

And he saw a monster.

He screamed and backed away, looking frantically around for the monster that he saw in that vision, turning, dizzy, seeing one of the older men walking back to his tent. Kelas remembered the man was Eron and he was always somewhat kind to him. He told Eron about the monster in the water and that was when the old man told him with a sympathetic shake of his head that he wasn’t seeing a monster but his own reflection. His mother would tell him later that it was merely his poor vision coupled with his child’s imagination which conjured the image but he knew she was only being kind. He’d dared to look one other time, at the Placement Center in Central telling himself the same things. He told himself that it wasn’t real. He told himself that he was fine. He was wrong. He requested after that for them to please remove any such objects. He didn’t look again.

Parmak supposes he should be thankful that the fear Garak had put in him supersedes such childish things. Sometimes he almost wonders what it is that he looks like. Sometimes he’s almost tempted to stare into a piece or glass or a cracked window pane, a shiny bit of metal just to see what it is that others see… what men like Michael see when they stroke the side of his face and don’t seem to be afraid. But Garak’s eyes are another matter. He still feels bile rising in the back of his throat and his heart start to race even at the thought. He doesn’t have the fearlessness of his youth but… Perhaps, he thinks, perhaps he can look just for a moment. That would shift the balance of power to his favor. He forces his feet to keep from shuffling so that he doesn’t betray his unease.

Parmak tries. He starts from the bottom, from the floor but there’s a freeze that seizes him when his eyes move up Garak’s body. He can’t go any further once his gaze reaches Garak’s neck. Parmak can feel his heart start to pound even harder as he tries. He feels dizzy. He feels sick. He forces his hand to remain steady with the quickly mixed drug in the vial but he knows any moment it’s going to start shaking. He counts the ridges on Garak’s neck knowing the count moving to his ear, moving to his lips until he almost thinks that it’s close enough that he can fool him. He used to focus on Garak’s chufa before. The lips are better, he thinks. He opens his mouth and closes it again tightly.

“Ya’?” he hears whispered beside him. It’s… especially humiliating to have to rely on his daughter to speak for him. Parmak shuts his eyes and opens them again. He looks down at the vial.

“You’ll have to excuse poor Kelas, I’m afraid he doesn’t respond particularly well to shock. He’s always been sensitive.” Parmak grips the vial tightly when he hears Garak’s biting honeyed words.

“And Elim for his part has always had an amusing habit of talking more than the subjects he was meant to interrogate. I recall hearing it said once that his most effective method of interrogation was to recite Preloc until a subject broke under a wave of overwrought and dramatic verse.”

“Here you told me that you found my recitations enchanting, you wound me, my dear.” Parmak breathes deeply, that specter of Garak the interrogator falling back behind the old banter.

“Ah, I did… Mm, I suppose then you’re not the only one of us proficient with lies.” Parmak holds up the vial knowing that Garak can see it. “Do you remember that I told you once that my father said lying was a disease that would rot the tongue?” Parmak imagines Garak sticking out his tongue in response as he usually would when Parmak would make that remark. “You’re sticking it out now, aren’t you, Elim?” He asks, smiling in spite of himself.

“Perhaps you should look and see for yourself.” There’s a darkness underlying that tone that makes him nearly shiver.

“I’m not going to be playing that game with you today,” Parmak says, barely managing to project his voice above a whisper. He hates it.

“Bet he’s got a thickie, don’t he, ya’?” Roka’s timely interruption nearly makes him jump but it breaks the tension of that moment neatly. “S’always them old’uns with the thickies mess your head up good like that.” Parmak nearly drops the vial.

“Th-that’s… ah… really no one’s concern,” he says blinking a few times.

“Guls with the whore talk,” Parmak hears Yihot muttering on his other side.

“Like ya’ ain’t heard worse from thems come in middle month needing to drop an egg,” Roka declares loudly.

“Doesn’t mean I need to hear it now. Look at him, preening like that. Hey! Why don’t I yank it out and slice it off right now, Obbie!?”

“I’m afraid you’re going to need a bigger knife. Isn’t that right, Kelas?”

Parmak smiles, eyes to Garak’s throat, feeling a morbid satisfaction seeing the chains around his neck.

“Right as always,” he says and walks over in two hasty strides. He grabs a fistful of Garak’s hair just as he imagines the wide grin painting Garak’s face, yanks his head back, and pours the vial into his mouth, sure to press the chains into his throat and force a swallow. Parmak barely steps out of the way as Garak begins to cough. He knows that the dosage is higher than necessary, but he’s tested it enough times over the years to know that even if the entirety of the vial makes it down Garak’s throat there won’t be any ill effects- at least none that he can’t handle, none that he doesn’t deserve. “There we are, now that should take a few moments for the effect but it should work.” He looks to Yihot. “I appreciate your efforts, but you would be wise,” he looks to Roka now as well. “-not to engage him. Although Elim is quite capable in a variety of areas, although he can certainly kill with a myriad of implements, his most potent weapon is his voice.

Roka snorts.

“Ain’t nothin’ impressive ‘bout this old’un yet,” she says not looking intimidated in the slightest.

“All he’s got is his voice, old man. We made sure we searched him thoroughly. Nothin’ on the screens either?” Parmak smiles at them weakly.

“No, nothing, It would seem that he really has come to us unaccompanied. Would you give us a moment, please? We need to discuss a few things and… there are certain subjects I’d rather you weren’t present for. Especially if Elim is going to insist on vulgarity.”

“The only vulgar thing in this world is a common mind,” Garak quotes Iloja of Prim rather nicely.

“You can’t even look at him, old man,” Yihot growls under his breath.

“Mmm, well I don’t expect that to change any time soon,” Parmak agrees.

“We got this. Let me loosen a few of his scales and I don’t care if he names every son of a whore his mother ever made it with I’ll get what we need,” Yihot insists.

“It’s fine,” Parmak says holding up his hands. If one of you would bring me a seat though, that would be the most help you could give right now. It’s been long enough that I’d be at ease if you were to check on the others and start with dinner. Roka looks uncertain as does Yihot but they both agree.

“Anything goes up, ya’ I got something what’ll fix ‘im right.” Parmak laughs softly at that giving her wrist a squeeze.

“Ah, I should have let you know that Order agents are quite immune to most common street drugs, Trap included. But I’m proud of you. You’re strong. Be well both,” he says dismissively, Yihot taking a moment to drag another wooden chair in from an adjacent room. “Facing him is fine,” Parmak says, sitting down once the chair is situated, facing Garak. He waits until he hears them leave before smiling at Garak, focusing his eyes up, on a point on the wall that he’d already decided on. “Well, Elim, I think that you should be sufficiently prepared so shall we begin?”

---

“Nothing could prepare me for glimpsing your loveliness again, my dear. For once my eyes have beheld your glory, I should slay you for fear that my devotion to you might eclipse my life’s duty.” Garak says the line, watching Parmak’s face go still. Still so lovely, Garak thinks. The effect is exactly as he imagined. He sees Parmak unsure if the serum had worked. It hadn’t of course. The nice little drug cocktail that Lok had supplied him – mindful of his current pharmaceutical indiscretions – will easily counter the outdated concoction that Parmak had developed for Tain. But the lie will lead to the truth and it will lead to Parmak’s believing anything that Garak tells him. You’re concerned, Kelas. You know that it should have taken effect by now. It’s been years since you’ve used it or I wouldn’t be able to plant that doubt in you. You’re uncertain. You’re off balance. You should have kept the young ones in here instead of trying to “spare” them the sight of seeing you supplicant on your knees at my feet. They gave you strength, Kelas. It’s unfortunate.

“You can’t lie to me,” Parmak says.

“As I breathe, I lie,” Garak says indifferently, seeing Parmak frown. “Perhaps you should test me like you used to. Remember you once said the true efficacy of any truth serum lie in its ability to trick the truth from my tongue.”

“I used to say a lot of things, Elim,” Parmak says softly. He laughs - a subtle shake of his shoulders - “I used to tell you that I was unbreakable. I used to tell you that you didn’t scare me.”

“I could never be with a man who wasn’t afraid of me,” Garaks offers charitably.

“You were the only one who saw through me even then.” Parmak crosses his arms sitting back, looking at the ceiling. Garak scents the air again pleased to be only tasting him now.

“And now? Do I still see through you, my dear?”

“I’m not going to look at you,” Parmak declares to the ceiling. “I’m going to kill you.”

“For every life you take, you must give back a hundred,” Garak quotes. This time from the old doctor who’d raised Parmak: Vakem Parmak. “But I count eight including yourself, not a hundred.”

“Maybe I’ll kill an eighth of you then,” Parmak retorts defiantly. Garak smiles amused.

“I assure you in spite of your daughter’s colorful commentary my manhood doesn’t quite constitute an eighth of my person.” Parmaks snorts in response to that.

“Mmm… well I’m sure that the serum must be working then, since I recall you once declaring that your everted ch’och easily spanned two regnars end to end.”

“Perhaps I’ve held back for you out of consideration.” Garak feels his tongue thick in his mouth as a result of the drug. It has a bitter taste though he’s certainly swallowed worse. He imagines that Parmak would laugh but instead he sits back up. Garak notices that his eyes fall briefly to Garak’s lap. “Fear not, Kelas, it’s still intact in spite of your hatchlings’ overzealous searching.”

“Why are you here?” Parmak asks looking at Garak’s chest.

“Untie me.”

“Bury me,” Parmak hisses, leaning forward in the chair the anger finally starting to rise to the surface.

“Untie me.”

“Why are you here?!”

“Because of a foolish oversight on my father’s part, same as you, dear Kelas.” That stops him. It’s as good a confession as any but Garak doesn’t take any satisfaction out of it. Parmak’s guilt in Tain’s death was never in any doubt. “But what I don’t understand is how you were able to get close to him a second time. Your holes are sweet, but they’re hardly that magical.” He’s as vulgar as possible in that declaration - another “tell” that the serum is working for Parmak to grab. He sees Parmak’s eyes flash, and he sees an aborted snap of his head. Parmak wants to look him in the eyes but he can’t.

He’s silent again for a long while and Garak is impressed that he isn’t rising to the bait further.

“Oh well, I think that neatly answers any question as to why you’re here, Elim.” Assumptions are the poison of any interrogation. Garak could easily tell him that and he thinks that Parmak should rightly know better. He’s harder after The Fire; that much Garak can tell. But that steel also seems to have come at the expense of his analytics. That would be convenient. Garak would sooner deal with a brave idiot than a smart coward. Still as for his erroneous conclusion, there’s a simplicity to it that’s beneath Parmak. Garak is pleased that he seems to realize it as well. “No, that’s not it,” he amends softly. “You wouldn’t want me to think that either. If you really wanted to kill me, we’d all be dead.”

“Ah but I would also miss an opportunity to acquaint myself with your handsome little brood Kelas. Tell me, are any of them Tain’s?” he asks glibly knowing full well that shouldn’t be possible.

Parmak’s face gives him the answer that his mouth doesn’t.

“For once, you’re not the one asking the questions.” Garak doesn’t need to. He knows. The answer is no.

“Yes, and I find that being in this position affords me an insight into the process that I’ve had little opportunity to experience. I must say if the work of my colleagues to this point had been so frightfully dull and unimaginative… I can see why I was the only one who could break you.” Curiously, Parmak tilts his head at that remark and sighs deeply. He surprises Garak by slowly beginning to unlock the chain from around his neck.

“You didn’t break me, Elim,” he answers softly before moving to the ropes around Garak’s waist and chest. “I was broken long before that.” His hands work the bindings on Garak’s arms. “I just didn’t realize it. Please be silent a moment. I need to untie your legs and your voice grates on me when you’re being particularly smug.”

Garak is obedient. Parmak is supplicant. At least that’s the picture he makes on his knees before him, Garak staring down at his white head, at the obscene slip of a shirt that billows out just enough for Garak to look down it. He looks in silence, scenting the air again, scenting Parmak, scenting his body, scenting that fear, seeing his chest, fragile, soft, the swollen dirty nipples of a live bearing Northerner who’s been wet nursing a little suckling not theirs.

Garak shuts his eyes and breathes in as Parmak moves to his other leg. He wants him. He wants to put his mouth to that chest, he wants to pinch those barbaric mammalian throwback things until Parmak sobs and begs him to stop. He wants to turn him around, drag him onto his lap and fuck every thought of Tain from his body. Which is exactly why he told Lok that he shouldn’t be used for this assignment. It was a foolish objection and he knew it the moment he’d made it. Lok may have also quite perceptively pointed out that one of the strengths that Garak developed over the years was turning his tendencies toward the emotional to good work.

“Why are you here, Elim?” Parmak asks, still on his knees, eyes on the floor and Garak has never felt more powerful or more vulnerable with Parmak in that position. Good work, he hears Lok say to him.

“I’m here for you, Kelas,” he answers honestly.

“Are we back to that again?”

“The Order is back again.”

“The Order should stay dead with the rest of Old Cardassia.”

“The New Order is going to build the New Cardassia, Kelas, and once there was no one more determined to build a new Cardassia than you.” Garak flexes his hands and slowly begins working feeling back into his arms. The tingling, the pain of blood flow is bit of nostalgia.

“And you find yourself in need of a doctor?” Parmak asks with a soft laugh. Surely you can dig out some of the camp relics if you’re willing to track me down. Doctor Medek would suit your purposes far better than I would.” It never fails to amaze Garak how young Parmak always looks no matter how tired, no matter how he slumps or shuffles or whispers quietly to the walls.

“Our beloved Doctor Medek didn’t kill Enabran Tain,” Garak murmurs.

This is where the subject’s heart skips a beat. This is where the subject will either lie or ask-

“How did you know?”

“Because I saw Tain at Internment Camp 371 when he was dying. Shall I list the symptoms, Kelas? Shall I tell you that I knew within a matter of hours that the toxin build up had to have been over the span of months, possibly years to still be in his system? Shall I tell you how I suspected and how my suspicions led me to you upon my return?”

“Mmm… I’m sure if you did you’d weave quite a fanciful tale, Elim.” Parmak bows his head, hands between his knees as small as he can make himself, pillowing his forehead to Garak’s knee. “I’m sure you already have. Ah… I know how you love these grand moments of drama so I should hate to take that from you but… but it was a test, you know,” he hears Parmak say and in a way it’s almost… beautiful. “You and me,” Parmak continues before Garak can say anything else. “That was a test. You breaking me? Was a test. Me returning to Tain after 3 years there…” Garak sees Parmak jump, that laugh he gives because he’s incapable of tears.

“That was a test,” Garak supplies for him glad the drugs already leave him cold.

“That was a test. And then I decided thoughtlessly without consulting you that your life might find some value if you were to be finished with tests.”

“I see…”

“Don’t misunderstand me,” Parmak says, lifting his head and smacking Garak’s knee. “Our relationship wasn’t the test. Mmm, likely Tain saw it as ah… convenient means to begin the test…”

“Tain was fond of his “tests”,” Garak agrees thinking of Palandine, of Doctor Bashir, even so far back as to remember the little regnar. “Clearly, I passed that one,” he observes mildly. Of course he would; especially after seeing Parmak and Tain that night. “So then-”

“This is my interrogation, Elim.” Garak sees Parmak’s hands on his knees with the old familiarity. He holds them apart. He looks up at Garak’s chufa – the closest that he ever comes to looking him in the eyes. “So what will you do if I choose not to dirty my hands for you?” His mouth is set hard. It’s the look of a man who’s had his fill of death.

“I never asked you the first time. That was your decision- your life, your mistake, your assassination. Your hands are already dirty, Kelas.”

Parmak slaps the inside of his thigh hard.

“Then bury me, snake!” He yells standing up and turning away. Garak grabs his wrist tightly, muscles protesting the sudden movement. “Let go of me,” he hisses. Parmak is old, Parmak has always looked weak but he’s always been exceptionally strong. He doesn’t try and pull away.

“I will lay in the dirt with you Kelas,” Garak swears, their eyes almost meeting when Parmak turns back around slowly. “But first, I’m going to tell you a “fanciful tale” as you would say, a tale worthy of a snake.” He can see Parmak’s eyes darting, twitching unconsciously. Parmak easily slips his hold but then hooks his index finger around Garak’s. He keeps looking at his chufa.

“Doctor Parmak use to say the only trust that you can hold in a snake’s tail is that you cannot trust it at all.”

“I can’t lie to you, my dear,” Garak lies. “Not here, not in this honest little patch of darkness.” Parmak really is stunning with the shadows from the dimming light along his ridges. It makes him look stronger, it makes his eyes look bigger behind his spectacles. Garak sees those pupils continue to shake with that albino’s weakness.

“Why are you here?” Parmak whispers, middle finger hooking around Garak’s next. Garak looks at him speculatively, knowing that he has to play this exactly right.

“Perhaps some time when this unpleasant business has passed us we might hear of my adventures upon the dying monument to the Old vanity, but for now, what you need to know. Before The Fire, before the war, before the Occupation, I discovered the Founder home world.” He pauses, seeing a tension in Parmak’s shoulders, feeling it through their fingers. “I was going to destroy it. I could see what was going to happen, it rang in my head more clearly than anything I’ve ever felt. It was one of those visions that I’ve always had.”

“That’s...” Parmak swallows looking down at their link. “That would be genocide, Elim. That would be an unconscionable massacre.”

“One life for a hundred, Kelas. What are our lives worth? What are eight hundred million, what are a billion Cardassian lives worth?”

Parmak doesn’t answer him right away, Garak letting that sink in.

“They stopped me, of course. The Federation, the moral Starfleet like you, could hardly condone such a despicable act.”

“Of course they wouldn’t. That’s one thing I’ve learned about them. They value life.” Parmak stares at the gray wall behind Garak.

“Ah, but we’re not to the end of the story yet, my dear Kelas. For in these classic human tales, I’ve learned there’s always a twist, always a grand unmasking of the villain at the highest moment of tension.” Another finger hooks - the ring this time - he’s getting to him. The last finger follows at Garak’s initiation, the eight digits twining around each other, Parmak looking at the wall like it’s about to come for him looking anxious, uneasy, almost as if he knows what Garak’s is going to say. Garak wants Parmak to look at him. He will- when the moment is right.

“So now we come to the, as the humans say, coup de grâce, that final merciful blow. It should hardly come as a surprise to you that the vaunted Federation works in the shadows same as we do. They call it Section 31, one might say the dark puppet masters really pulling the strings behind that noble front. Shall I tell you what delightful little egg they birthed into existence, Kelas?” Parmak twists his hand holding it tightly. He breathes in hard, closes his eyes, no doubt bracing himself. But there is no brace, Garak thinks, no mercy as he tells him plainly and simply. “A virus. Once the Federation casualties became too great, once too many of theirs had been lost, that’s when Guls damn genocide became acceptable.” And he watches Parmak shutting his eyes with a soft whimper, a tight press of his lips a nearly painful squeeze to Garak’s hand but he revels in it. This is what he needs. This is what Lok had wanted from him. “You told me Kelas, you told me as you sat in that miserable cell that when you looked in my eyes you saw the dead coming for you.”

“Elim-” Frantic, scared, as if Garak with his words alone could force him to look. “Please...”

“How many dead do you think you’ll see now? How many “disposable Northerners” that they deny exist? How many starving Nokarans? Kranessans because of the “evils” of bio mimetic gel that they refuse to give us? How many more have to die to serve their sick self righteous hypocrisy?”

“I don’t... I don’t know what you want from me, Elim. I’m a doctor... I’m not a...”

“I want you to help me eliminate a virus, Kelas. That was your specialization after all. Communicable disease, infection, pathogens, microbes. That’s what the Federation is.”

“A virus...” Parmak whispers, breaths coming faster, more shallow and Garak suppresses the urge to smile.

“Look at me, Kelas, my dear Kelas. I’ve spent these last thirty miserable years dreaming of those enchanting eyes of yours looking into mine.” Sweet, soft, like the thick poisonous honey filling the deadly Elaran bowl flowers; they always trap their butterflies. Garak begs him softly, intoning his Nokaran name as he does. “Pleassse Kelasssar...” slips sibilantly into the air between them like a spell.

And Parmak looks.

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