"As near as possible"
A/N. Long ass author's note, so feel free to skip:
My take on why Goren's acting so differently this season (well, in the first half, at least). Parts of this might be AU, as I have Goren and Eames together, and I have no idea about Eames actual family and what they're like and their names, so I'm making all of that up (isn't writing fantastic? creative license and whatnot). It might be angsty--oh, who am I kidding--it will be angsty, but without giving anything away there will be a happy ending, of sorts.
The prologue is mostly setting the scene, atmosphere, etc., and the actual plot begins in chapter one (just to let you know that there will be a plot, it's not going to be 14,000 words of how Goren feels, although that would be fun to do). I'm still not entirely satisfied with this, but I like it, which is more than I could say five revisions ago. And I'm pretty sure this is going to be a long story.
I don't own them, not making any money off this, just for fun, etc.
Okay, I think that's it. Hope you enjoy it, and thanks for reading!
Prologue
He feels like he's sinking. Like he's smoke and vapor while everyone else is liquid in the ocean. Like he's just fading away, separated from his previous life as firmly as the ideal promised in weight loss commercials: here sickly, flabby, limp-haired and grim and alone; then four weeks of this diet or pill and suddenly here tan and shiny, firm, confident, better lit, disassociating from the before as if that *other* person never even existed.
It's the split he just can't get over. The divide.
His old life, where his family was dysfunctional but alive. His father was abusive, sure, a deadbeat, certainly, but not a serial killer.
His old life, where he was not with Eames.
And now, the new, the present. All his biological family is dead, save for a missing 19 year old nephew. His father was one of the most prolific serial killers in decades.
And he is with Eames.
Is it better to be the unhappy before or the shallow paranoid after? Is it worth it to be more confident if you have to ferociously deny your previous existence?
He can't decide. He's stopped thinking about it, mostly. He doesn't think about much of anything anymore, not even Eames, really (whereas for so long she was practically all he thought about).
Not thinking is nice. No panic attacks when he's so numb and blank and quiet. When he's not thinking about the brief flickering disaster that was his family. When he's not thinking about how he's probably going to screw things up with Eames so she'll leave him and then he'll be all, all alone, again, alone again, alonealonealoneagain.
He feels like he's in purgatory waiting for something to inevitably happen that will destroy his carefully preserved Shield of Numbness (trademarked 2008/9 Detective Goren).
He can feel the tension in the air. The worry emanating off of Eames. The reedy threads of stress and impatience in her voice as she talks to him in the night, her hands on him trying to convince him for more, and in the early mornings when they're both awake and silent in bed, covered but not warm, not in pain but not comfortable, still but not relaxed. Not unhappy, but not exactly joyous, either. In the stasis of so this is their relationship—mostly just awkward and quiet.
But he doesn't mind that they're not moving, because maybe there isn't a whole hell of a lot left to move forward too.
In another lifetime he supposes he would have analyzed this.
Depression? (maybe)
Peace? (doubtful)
Acceptance? (eh)
Life? (?)
Freedom? (no)
No.
He doesn't want it to be freedom. He doesn't want Declan, in his twisted murderous fucking annihilistic way, to be right. He doesn't want the pieces of his life to be…bad, somehow, a virus—no, no a cancer, hidden and insidious and spreading until the grand splashy entrance of pain; something necessitating removal and eradication from memory with a harsh radioactive clinicality, each unbelonging cell blotted out and destroyed for the greater good.
It makes him sick to think of it.
His treatment.
His freedom.
And the only side effect is that he's suddenly become this walking zombie unaware of his own decay. A puppet pretender among the veined throbbing alive.
This is what family does to you.
Thanks to Daystar Searcher for correcting my mistake :)