All The Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues
I wanted to write something this weekend but I couldn't think of a good idea until Tinkerpanda gave me this. Sam and Raf and Daddy issues, this is going to be fun. This is going to be set post "War Within" but also some direct spoilers from "A Day in the Life." I'm gonna give it a shot so let me know what you think. I'm kind of extrapolating a bit. I don't own Flashpoint...yet. :)
EDIT: Fixed the weird thing that took out spaces with the italicized parts. Hopefully it reads better now.
The moment Raf hung the photo in his locker, Sam knew that they wouldn't be getting along. He hated that he was making premature judgments already on the new guy's first day but he was already infuriated. He wasn't so much angry as he was frustrated, and he couldn't blame Raf. The first thing the guy does when he starts his new job is hang a picture of his dad up in his locker. Sam felt himself slamming his locker slightly harder than he intended. Greg and Ed had noticed his reluctance to talk about his family, particularly his father, but they hadn't pressed the issue. It hadn't affected his work and he didn't make any move to bring it up.
Just what this place needs ,another loving family. Sam internally scoffed, first at his surroundings; he felt isolated, almost suffocated by the relationships he knew that everyone else had in their life and that he had been deprived of. But then he caught himself and quickly shook his head, trying to get the thoughts away from his mind. He didn't want to hate anyone for their happiness, it wasn't fair to take out his anger and pain on other people. He quickly banished the thoughts as the alarm rang through SRU and Winnie's voice filled the air, sending them off on their first hot call of the very long day that would lay ahead.
Sam had to admit it though, when the real stories came out he was shocked. He had no idea that Spike's father was closing himself off, even on his deathbed he hadn't admitted that he was proud of his son; even though Sam didn't have a great relationship with his father, he couldn't image the pain that their young, family centered bomb tech was feeling. And then Ed found Clark under the bridge where there was a shooting, their perfect family again seeming to shatter as he found out what Clark really did with his Saturdays. And though Sam could feel slightly more connected to the flaws, he knew that there wasn't a hatred there. It wasn't the same as his situation, none of it was or ever could be. He didn't think that things could change. He wasn't going to go make amends with his father; for all he cared he didn't have to see the man again until his funeral.
It was late one night that his phone buzzed on the bedside table. He quickly rolled out of bed, light as a feather, careful to not disturb the woman who officially was at home sanding a shelf alone. He felt the third vibration as he left the room and quickly answered the call before it went to voicemail, not having a chance to look at the caller ID.
"Braddock." Sam spoke quickly, realizing that it was just past 2 AM.
"Sam?" He couldn't tell who's voice it was on the other end of the line. It was smooth and deep, familiar but just out of reach as he tried to place the new voice.
"Yeah..." He said, wiping his face and trying to wake himself up.
"It's...ah...it's Raf. I'm sorry about calling so late..." Sam nearly hit himself for not recognizing the distinct voice on the other end of the line. Raf's words took on a slow cadence, soft and quiet, nearly a whisper.
"Raf, no problem man, what's up?" Sam asked quickly, trying to seem awake and ready to talk. It was only just over a week since his first lethal and the day had been a tough one. It had been a close call; if Raf had hesitated in the least, just a split second, it could have been the difference between a troubled kid getting the help he needed and another body to add to the count they all subconsciously kept. Sam knew that even though he was only monitored for the first 72 hours after his first lethal, the inner turmoil didn't stop there. He seemed to handle things pretty well considering. He'd seen the counselor, shown appropriate grief, and got back to work but that didn't mean that he wasn't dying beneath the skin.
"I...I...ah..." Raf seemed to hesitate as he spoke, his words coming slowly. Sam detected a slight slur but only because he was listening, Raf had held off on the alcohol for a while but it had to come eventually.
"Raf, where are you? I'll come meet you." Sam offered as he found shoes and pulled a sweatshirt over his head. Even if their newest team member wouldn't admit it, even just being in the presence of someone sympathetic could do wonders.
"That's not necessary man, I...I really don't know why I called you, I'm sorry."
"That's bull, Raf." Sam said with a split tone of joking and seriousness. "You know exactly why you called and you're not getting off the hook. Where are you?" He asked again as he heard Raf sigh and mumble that he was at the goose, a bit too drunk to trust himself driving. "I'll be there in ten, hang tight, buddy." Sam said before quietly letting himself out of his small apartment and going for his car.
He hadn't gotten a good read on Raf yet. He was competent, good at the job, a tad cocky (but weren't they all when they started?), and a fast learner. He'd been through a few rough days since he'd joined the team and so far he'd met all of their expectations and a few more. Though it was sad and hard to lose someone as good at the job and as good a team member as Wordy, Raf has slowly been trying to fill in those shoes. Sam wasn't surprised to be getting this call. Just as he's sure Ed had to call Greg at some point in the middle of the night, Wordy had called Ed, and he'd called Ed mid getting drunk after a hard day, he expected Raf to call him at some point. The alcohol was a tricky situation; there was never really a good time to start drinking again after something like a lethal, there just wasn't. Even if, during your waking hours, you were over the incident, subconsciously, you're never through it completely.
He found Raf sitting at the corner of the bar with half a bottle of beer in front of him. He didn't look up when Sam entered and didn't really make a move when Sam sat down next to him. It wasn't the nicest bar in the world but it wasn't a hellhole either. It was a place with the mind-numbing elixir that they'd all fallen into at some point. Sitting down at the bar was the easy part, getting up and getting home and going to work in the morning, well that was the hard part. Sam sat quietly for a few minutes, turing down the bar tender's questions about a drink.
"Sorry about waking you up, Sam. I'm really okay, I don't know what I wanted to say when I called you, I just...I don't know." Sam nodded as Raf spoke in his slow, deep voice. His eyes were bloodshot and his hands a bit shaky but overall, he didn't seem to be overly drunk. All of them ran into the same pitfalls of being on the job so long, they knew the very bad things that could happen if someone drove drunk and even though, for the most part, they would be able to make it home after a few drinks they never took the risk. Seentoomuch. Sam thought to himself as Raf shifted in his seat.
"Like I said Raf, it's fine. I'm glad you called." Sam gave him a slight smile. "What brought you out here tonight?" He prompted, not sure if Raf would start speaking on his own.
"I don't know, I was just thinking a lot I guess." He said vaguely as Sam looked at him sympathetically. Raf took another sip of his beer, finishing it off as he motioned for the bar tender to bring him another. "Want anything?" Raf asked as he glanced towards Sam.
"Just some water." Sam said softly as he got more comfortable in his spot. "What were you thinking about that brought you here?" Sam asked curiously.
"What do you mean?" Raf gratefully took the beer the bartender handed him and took a quick sip as Sam put his water down.
"Well, I mean different thoughts send you different places. When I'm angry I go to the gym, when I'm down I talk to a friend or go for a run, but hitting the bottle, that's a whole other level of thinking." Raf nodded in understanding and took another sip of his beer. He didn't look at Sam as he spoke but seemed to stare at the condensation forming on the side of the dark brown bottle in front of him.
"I don't know, it's been a long, hard couple weeks. What you guys do is tough man." Raf said with a smile as he sat up a bit.
"You mean what wedo is tough." Sam corrected. "You're still the rookie but you've proven yourself, Raf. You're in that hell with us every day now and I get the desire to go for the hard stuff, I do." Sam said with a serious nod, waiting for Raf to make eye contact before continuing. "But you haven't gone for it so far, so what happened tonight?" Raf sighed.
"Maybe I'm not cut out for this, Sam." He almost whispered. Sam nodded, understanding the feeling of being thrown into a whole new system, a whole new team and lifestyle.
"It's a tough transition but you're gonna make it on SRU Raf. If you weren't cut out for it you would have been out of there on the first day, and trust me, you had the hardest first day I've seen in a long time." Raf smiled and nodded as he remembered but a split second of pain surfaced in his eyes. Sam wasn't sure if it was a good idea to push but he also didn't think that Raf would open up on his own. "That had to have been a really hard day for you but you did great. And that kid today, you saved him Raf. You weren't backing someone up, you weren't doing support, your reflexes and gut saved that kid."
"I know you're trying to bolster my self-esteem and all, Sam," He started before pausing and turning back to his bottle "but you're leaving out the fact that I killed a someone..." He spoke slowly again and it seemed like there might have been something more that he'd planned on saying but he trailed off.
"It sucks man, I know it sucks. It feels wrong and just...sometimes it just feels like you're a bad person but we tried, Raf. We try every day to bring everyone home safe and we've just got to be prepared to follow the order if we get it." Sam said strongly, a slight shrug coming to his frame. He knew that explanations wouldn't do much good, every individual rationalized the need to take lethal action differently, it would just take a while for Raf to know what his reasons were. "That's not all though, is it?" Sam asked as he took another sip of his water.
"Just...reminded me of someone." Raf said quietly, almost bitterly as he drained the rest of his beer and looked for the bartender.
"Raf, you don't have to stop but, maybe just slow it down a little." Sam said gently as the bartender approached. Raf sighed and nodded as he asked for a soda. Sam thought that he knew who Raf referred to, he'd been on the open comm link while he negotiated the subject on his first call.
"...Iwant to tell you about this guy I know. He was a pretty smart student , 'gifted' even, couple years younger than Asta. And he had this really great music teachr and this teacher made him feel like he was the most awesomely talented kid in the world, like...anything was possible. He told him he was so much more...together, more...more...more mature than other boys his age. Except it wasn't so simple. See this teacher had his own ideas about being mature...about keeping secrets...about love. Now, the boy, he was not feeling that at all. He went home, he was all upset, he didn't tell his dad why he was upset but...his dad got it out of him and...well his dad grabbed a baseball bat, tracked that teacher down and he...gave him what he felt he had coming, if you know what I mean. And then the dad went to prison and...he's stilll there...still there. He's been there...ah...15 years now. And the kid knew that the dad did that because he loved him, he knew that but...he would have given anything. Anything, just for him to show it in a different way. If he could have put down the bat and...found the right words instead."
They hadn't expected anything Raf had said and if the boss and Ed knew, they weren't letting on. He'd successfully negotiated the woman, talked her down and gotten the hostage his medical attention all in the midst of two other hot calls. He might not have waited to be cleared to enter but he'd proven that he had guts that day. He'd also proven that he had a history though, he'd proven that he was human and it was good to get that step out of the way. Behind the cool pants and the bullet proof shields, the tech gadgets and the seeming emotionless superhero, sometimes you forgot that you were only human, only mortal. Sam didn't want to bring it up but the silence had gone on for a while and it didn't seem like Raf was going to be overly forthcoming without some kind of prompting.
"Thinking about your dad?" Sam asked in an even, non-judging tone. Raf seemed to freeze for a moment, maybe forgetting that Sam knew, but he slowly started to nod.
"He's a good guy, just made a mistake in the heat of the moment." Raf said immediately as he again stared at his soda.
"I don't doubt it." Sam said, trying not to tense up. He wondered if his father would have done the same thing for him, if he'd even care enough to ask what was wrong or to even notice what was wrong.
"You know, he's proud of me being a cop, has a picture of me in his cell even though he gets harassed about it. I just wish that I got that time with him...fifteen years..." He trailed off in thought as Sam wondered how stressful it must have been for a teenage boy, recently abused by a teacher, to see his own father imprisoned for defending him. "You and your old man tight?" Raf asked, trying to divert a little bit of the attention away from himself. Sam felt his muscles visibly tense as his breath caught in his throat. He felt himself sit up straighter, his jaw lock into position, all the subtle things that his father had conditioned him to do, all the subtle things that he still hated.
"No. No, we're not close." Sam said stiffly and firmly. Raf seemed a bit startled by the harsh tone and Sam knew that he needed to fix the dynamic before they could continue. "Sorry, didn't mean to snap. My father and I just...well we aren't on the greatest terms." He tried to put the situation as vaguely as possible, thinking that if this conversation was going to continue, he needed a good strong scotch.
"Sorry, didn't mean to open old wounds." Raf said quietly as he took another sip of his soda.
"Nah, it's just...long boring story." Sam smiled and tried not to ball his hands into fists as he lied. There was a bit of silence as Sam tried to get his mind out of the loop it was on, cycling through his childhood and more recent interactions with his father, his nails biting into the inside of his palms as he squeezed them into fists.
"Was it about you leaving the military?" Raf asks, seemingly a bit less inhibited by the alcohol in his system; he'd never ask that on a normal day.
"Some of it." Sam answered honestly, not sure how much he already knows. Raf looks at him expectantly, waiting for more words of wisdom, for a connection. You're not going to find a connection here. Sam says to himself as he lets out a breath. "My father...he's not really a great guy. He doesn't care what I do as long as I don't disgrace his name and his reputation and when I left the army, that's exactly what I did. In his eyes, I'm been a failure my whole life." Sam spoke bitterly, not looking directly at Raf as he went for his nearly empty glass of water.
"Sorry to hear that man. Can't imagine anyone believing you're a failure; you're like, the most perfect SRU guy I think in existence...well other than Ed of course." He smiled as he jokingly punched Sam's arm. Sam nodded but his face we no less tense, his hands still fists.
"Seriously man, you okay?" Raf asked, a bit worried now about what he'd brought to the surface. Sam nodded and motioned for the bartender.
"Scotch on the rocks." He ordered simply as he looked at Raf. "We'll call the boss or a cab or something." He added as the bartender brought over his drink and he downed it quickly. Raf looked at him a little surprised before turning back to his own soda.
"So, I guess we both drink when we think about our dads...that's cool." He said with a smile as Sam realized the similarity and returned a slight smirk. He motioned for the bartender to bring him another round as he downed his second drink as well. "Am I gonna need to tell you to slow down now?" Raf asked as Sam went to buy another before nodding and going back to water.
"Sorry, just...there are those things that make you want to go to the gym and drink simultaneously, the drink was closer though." Raf nodded.
"I know it's none of my business but..." He trailed off, not knowing how to ask the question that was burning in his mind, What the hell is going on with you and your dad? Sam thought for a moment and took a sip of his water before deciding on what to say.
"Like I said, he's not a nice man. We don't have a relationship anymore and I'm not planning on building one. I'm sorry about the way you and your dad are, the way things have gone for you, but...at least he loves you and you've got that going for you."
"I know he loves me," Raf said with a slight catch in his tone. "But he doesn't say it. It's a stupid distinction to make, I know, but I only remember a few times in my life that he's told me he loves me."
"I hear you, sometimes you wish you had the right words, that everyone else had the right words, it would just make things easier."
"Yeah, yeah I mean there are so many words to choose it just...none of them have that perfect meaning." Raf said with a sigh of frustration.
"Nothing's perfect. No one is perfect. In fact..." Sam paused for a moment and waited for Raf to look at him. "It's not being perfect that makes us good at our jobs. It's how we're able to talk people down, relate to them, it's how we're able to see people in pain and tell them that it'll be okay. Not being perfect makes us who we are." Sam said as he looked at Raf, feeling the words coming from him, feeling Raf absorb them and understand them.
They sat in silence for a few minutes before Sam ordered them another round. If they were going to get drunk, they might as well go all out and get drunk. They called Spike, first under the pretense of driving them home, but then realizing that he'd fit right into the little party they were having; silently commiserating, not sharing words but just knowing that they were among people of shared experiences, shared pain, shared imperfection.
Ahh, don't like this. Had a whole other direction planned and it was going to be great and epic and it might have even gone multi-chap but I couldn't. I don't have any more time to spend on this one and I wanted to get it done now. I like the idea, hate the execution. But, hey, I wrote something. Thanks to Tinkerpanda for giving me the idea (and staying on my about it!) and to Senses Fail (a band) for giving me the title of this (probably my favorite part of the story). The title is from a song off their album "Still Searching." Okay, you know the drill, please review and I write more. Thanks for being patient with me!