Foster's Fanfiction
Review Responses
Aden666- Thankyou for the review, I'm glad you are liking the story so far, and feel free to keep on speculating about the story, I always enjoy it when people take a deeper interest :), if you have not, please read the intros I have done both above and below this response, they're quite important in this chapter, that being said I hope you enjoy it.
Dude13- Thankyou for the review, I'm glad you are already hooked, and this will (I hope) turn out very unique so more for you to enjoy. If you haven't please do read my intro, it is quite important here, this chapter is confusing but it's supposed to be, enjoy the chapter.
Luigi Rocks- Thankyou for your review, it is really good to see people are enjoying the fic, the reason I put Mac living in the house was because I don't like his mother or Terrence, but there needs to be a canon reason behind it. Please read the intro to this chapter, I know it's very confusing, but it is supposed to be, it will become clear, enjoy the chapter.
Mortal Coil – Chapter 2
Mac's mother had taken a second job, and she really didn't know why. With the job she was doing previously, she had made sure Mac had a great home life, as well as a good home to come back to after school. She had adopted the occupation 3 years ago, when Terrence left. She had at first attributed it to getting her mind of what Terrence did, no mother should have to go through that and she was no exception. But when she was working, she only had to concentrate on what her boss told her to do. Mac's mother knew what the real reason behind her constant working was though, guilt, she had sent away Mac's hero, and it was her fault Terrence did what he did, kid's don't just do what they do without some kind of prompting. Of course it was because of Mac's father's death that had sparked off everything, the man he never knew, only 2 when he died, too young to remember, but too old not to be curious. Mac was smart, very for someone of such tender years, of course it only took him a week in school to realise, children had mothers and fathers, the eight-year old was slightly lacking in that department. It had taken social services calling to snap Mac's mother out of her…'episode' after the death of her husband. The bottle became her best friend, suddenly she became 'that' woman. A sickening stalemate between pity and scorn had existed in the eyes of those around her,
"Oh God, look at her the drunk mess, doesn't she have two young kids,"
"Oh no but her husband died, we can't intervene."
Terrence had essentially raised Mac for a year and a half, while his mother drank herself into an inebriated stupor, he had shouldered the burden of the child. That was why Terrence was sent away by his mother, he embodied the shame, the guilt, he was so like his father, even-tempered, caring, and selfless. Not an intelligent person, but…smart, he had sense to him that boy, he of course wasn't a whizz in school, but he knew right from wrong. Every time Mac's mother laid eyes on him, everything would come flooding back, he was after all the yang to her yin. She had become angry, distant, but most of all selfish. Mac's mother could feel the guilt eating away at her as soon as Terrence left, she had called him 'her greatest failure', but it was so inaccurate, she had failed him, and she hadn't done it by halves. Mac's mother could have just once asked him how he was dealing with his father's death, and not fill herself full of alcohol, she could have thanked him after she quit the drink. She remembered she had clutched her boys tight and said,
"We've gotten through it." Bull-shit, she hadn't gotten through anything, Mac was only a toddler, he didn't understand either way, but Terrence, he had gotten through it, he had carried her drunken arse to bed, laid Mac down for the night, did the house work and then went to sleep, then got up for school only to repeat the procedure every night. He had gotten through it, there wasn't a damn 'we' to it. When she had found Terrence doing his 'thing' 3 years later, he had begged for an apology, he grovelled at her feet, he implored his mother to absolve him. She had sent him away that night, the raw injustice of it, she, his filthy wino of a mother, she had sent him away. So Mac's mother had turned her attention to her other son, and showered him with love and treats, anything his heart desired, except his big brother back, but apparently queen alcoholic scorned him for his addiction, she had said what a terrible thing he had done. That's was almost certainly why Mac created Bloo, his mother was terrified of anything taking him away from her, she was the only friend he needed apparently. She had almost lost her child to her other child, she was his parent, not Terrence, she had already lost her husband, and if Terrence could look after Mac why would they need her? She couldn't have that, no, she would lose anything. Bloo was created when Mac had gone to a friend's house after school without asking her, why would he though? A psycho-bitch like her wouldn't have let him. After half an hour of yelling at the child he had ran to his room, lo and behold half an hour later she had heard Mac talking to someone, when she walked in and saw the blue blob, the first thing she had thought was, not what is this in my child's room, how did it get in? No, she had thought, doesn't that look like a bottle of WKD, how fucking pathetic is that? Oh, but after her booze-pangs had gone, she had gone into mother mode. She had gotten Mac a bunk bed, two lots of toys at Christmas, and treated Bloo like another child, and she did it all for Mac, because she really hated that blue little shit. He was trying to take her child away from her, just like Terrence. How the hell did Bloo have the nerve, she had relished the moment that little fucking trouble-causer had left, relished it. So that was why she sent Terrence away, because he helped, too much and tried to steal Mac from her, he had started his addiction, he reminded her of her dead husband, she didn't want him in the house to affect Mac. Plus when her husband was hit by that van, he was walking back from taking Terrence to play a game of footy, so it Terrence's fault, wasn't it? There was only one bad guy in this story, sometimes it was her, and sometimes it was Terrence. The bad guy didn't change, but whom she thought it was did, regularly. So ultimately who was it, the child-stealing disappointment that was Terrence, or the filthy selfish Wino that was herself? Or was it Terrence the selfless and let-down child, or the frazzled doting mother that only wanted the best for her son? Four personas, two people, one bad guy. Mac's mother looked in the mirror at the stressed, pudgy woman that looked back, she didn't have a damn clue what was what?
"Do you?" Her reflection didn't reply, it kept up its forlorn gaze, it said nothing, nothing at all.
Mac's mother was now ready for work, her night job this was, she would work from 8 until 11, in some dead end office that she bloody despised. She could handle it, she didn't care what the therapist had said about 'nervous breakdowns' and 'delusions'. She had it in her head, Terrence was the bad guy, dear sweet, selfless Terrence, he was the antagonist. At least he would be until her rapidly unstable thoughts revolved and she was the evil one again, but until then, she would relish the animosity against her son, her other child, her greatest failure. She clutched her chest as pain went shooting up her arm and chest, that had been happening more rapidly, but she could handle it, she couldn't let Mac see any weakness in her, she had no weakness, 'breakdown' and 'heart-trouble', were just words, words didn't affect someone like her. She poked her head into her son's room, he was sitting on his bed, staring at the wall, he wasn't playing with the myriad of toys and amusements dotted around his room, he very rarely did.
"Mac… Mac?" She asked more forcefully the second time, earning a gaze from the boy, he looked depressed, forty year-old men should look like that, anyone under the age of 30 should not.
"Mac I know you're upset but-"
"Why did Terrence have to go again?" The child's eyes were almost spilling with tears, had it not been for the fact that he kept blinking them away; he sniffed, as he kept doing, his bottom lip was quivering and his expression just asked, 'Why?' Mac's mother took in the image, she was supposed to protect him, make him happy, so just who the hell was the bad guy? Her watch suddenly started bleeping, the intrusive shrill noise snapping her out of her thoughts,
"Dammit, Mac I've got to go, but we'll talk when I get back, I love you," She said, the quick three words sounding sincere despite the haste, the child murmured back his reciprocation, but she knew he was still upset with her, his mother, the bad guy. She trudged out of the room and made her way to the door, only to almost collapse. She gripped onto the kitchen worktop as pain shot up her arm and chest, like someone had set a belt on fire and wrapped it around her, and was now mercilessly tightening it.
"They're just words," she repeated to herself over and over again, she had to go to work, she had to take her mind of Terrence, the bad guy. She dragged herself to the car, cursing the rain she found herself drenched with. She got into the automobile and started it up, then flicked on the radio, she found the Smiths began taking her mind of things.
Good times, for a change
See the luck I've had,
Could make a good man
Turn bad.
She drove along finding no escape in the music, or the thought of going to her monotonous soul-crushing job, she had no joy in the fact, which was a first. The pain in her chest was worsening, and it no longer seemed like just words anymore, words could now hurt her. Words like 'breakdown', 'mental' and 'bad guy'.
So please please please
Let me Let me Let me,
Get what I want
This time
Mac's wall held no answers to his question, his mum wasn't telling him anything and his brother had lied to him, he didn't care, though, he just wanted his mum and brother, back to how it was before everything got complicated, everything got unhappy and serious, that was all he wanted.
Haven't had a dream in a long time,
See the life I've had,
Could make a good man turn bad.
An alleyway wasn't where Terrence would wanted to spend the night, but he felt that was all he deserved, God he would kill for some…no, no he wasn't like that anymore, he had let Mac and his mum down once and he didn't want to do it again, he just wanted her to accept him again.
In those brief moments, their heavy hearts full of want for the unachievable, be it escape from an inescapable problem, the reunion of a broken family or the love of someone so devoid of affection, that broken family was the most united it had been in a while.
Lord knows, it would be the first time
Lord knows, it would be the first time
