Permit Me a Father Fantasy
A/N: This is so much shorter than last time, and it will forever amuse me because NOTHING WILL EVER ECLIPSE THAT CHAPTER I SWEAR TO GOD xDDDD Anyway, this one took me a bit, mostly 'cause I just kept digging my heels into the dirt and refusing to write it. I knew what I needed to say, I just didn't want to settle down and say it xD Anyway, I'm kind of proud of how this one turned out. I can't tell if I really ought to be, but I'll leave you guys to decide. So please leave your thoughts in the reviews?
Next chapter should be Control, a rather short story with third-person Silver POV serving as the narration. Hopefully, the chapter will serve as a "bridge" between two canon scenes (not that the canon scenes didn't flow well together, because I actually felt that the two bits in question had the smoothest transition of the whole film, but I'm just interested in delving deeper into how Point A got to Point B.)
Also, I recently started a YouTube account, bearing the name J.M. Ryder, and I've posted a couple Treasure Planet fan-videos - it'd make my day if you guys checked them out! :)
Don't forget to review if you liked this, and I'd love to hear the reasons why you didn't, provided you can state them kindly. :)
I knew this would happen.
Well, looking back, I guess I'd always known, really; I'd always known it was coming, somewhere inside me – but it was the kind of thing that lurked unobtrusively on the edges of my subconscious, occasionally darting in, only to remind me that the world I'd entered aboard the Legacy wasn't really as perfect as it seemed.
The thought had occurred slowly at first, trickling through in fragmented bits and pieces, a microscopic shard here and there, graduating steadily from fleeting half-thoughts and midnight fears, to dark premonitions to a sudden, firm-founded knowledge, and it was one so concrete and so irreversible that I never even thought of trying to fight it. I'd shoved it away, I'd pushed it out of my head, sent it to the back of my mind, forcing it to crouch in the darkest corners of my mind, but the truth was that I'd known. I couldn't ignore it, I couldn't pretend any different – the truth was the truth, and I'd known.
But it didn't help, it didn't matter, knowing didn't make it, any of it – the sight of Silver kneeling down on the platform, thick browned fingers twisting and curling in a hasty attempt to undo the knots we'd created just yesterday, broad back facing me; it didn't make the sound of his voice, cheerful and booming as it had always been turning low and panicked and breathless, issuing from his mouth in a hissing undertone to the squeaking pink creature fluttering anxiously at his side – knowing didn't make any of this hurt any less.
"You never quit, do you?" The sound of my own voice, echoing loudly through the dark hangar, startled me; the words scraped my throat on their way out, and when they hung in the stale, bad-smelling air between us, they didn't sound the way I'd wanted them to, cool and quick. I just sounded exhausted and angry and hurt.
I startled Silver, too – though his back was to me, I could clearly see his shoulders tensing slightly through the thick, dark coat and when he spun to face me, my name on his lips and a smile on his face, I could tell that every inch of his expression was practiced. "I was just checkin' to make sure our last longboat was…safe…and…secure…" As he spoke, he dropped to his knees and grabbed up the rope again, winding it clumsily around the peg a few times, to back up his claim.
And it would be so easy, I thought with a sudden pang; it would be so easy to go along with his story, to believe he was telling the truth, to smile and nod at him and pretend, if only for an hour, if only for a minute, if only for a second while I stared up at him, that he could stay beside me.
But real life doesn't take no for an answer. You live it, and you live it when it's hard and you live it when it's easy, and you keep going and you keep living, whether you want to or not.
So I took a breath and I didn't fight it, I just lived it.
"Well…" I went down onto my knees beside him and put a hand to my chin like I was seriously inspecting the knot staring back at me – the sloppy, loose sort you could undo with a touch of a finger. The kind a pirate should know better than to produce. It took me only seconds to retie it, glancing to him as I pulled it tight. "That should hold it." I even managed to smile at him.
"Taught ya too well." He sounded sort of rueful, and sort of proud. He stood up again, so I did too, leaving the rope where it lay on the floor, knotted tightly around the peg. And it would be so easy to pretend that this was just another one of his lessons, that he really was teaching me about knots and in a minute, we'd go down into the galley and start preparing the next meal, and then we'd scrub the dishes and he'd walk with me down to the crew's quarters and when I woke up the next morning, he'd be there, it'd be so easy to pretend…but real life didn't take no for an answer, and I knew that. But when he looked to me, I didn't speak anyway, staring silently back at him.
Say it. C'mon, say it. Say it, so I don't have to.
"Jimbo." He put a hand up to his mouth and he spoke behind it, leaning into me like the words were meant for me, only me; I'd seen him do that a million times on this ship, and each time, it had been for me. He'd only ever done it with me. And no matter what he said then, the words always seemed like some sort of magic to me, a special sort of secret that he trusted me to keep for him. There were no secrets here, I realized; there was nothing left for him to say like this, under his breath and behind his hand, there were no more secrets I needed to keep for him. There were no secrets left that I didn't already know.
"If ye don't mind, we'd just as soon avoid prison. Little Morphy here, he's a…a free spirit! Bein' in a cage—it'd break his heart." Silver grabbed the pink creature from the air and clamped his metal fingers around him in a hasty imitation of a jail cell. Trapping him.
I had to smile then. I had to smile to keep from crying, because I knew where this was going and I knew how things had to end and there was nothing left he needed to say under his breath or behind his hand, and there never would be again.
It took everything I had in me to press down on the lever; to stand there and watch the hatch sliding open, to lean down and begin untying my own knot, to smile at him when he smiled at me, and it took everything I had to bite my lip, and it took everything I had to keep from begging him to stay.
"What say ya ship out with us, lad?" The words were so unexpected that for a minute, I was sure I hadn't heard right – but then Morph flew from Silver's open palm and transformed himself into a pirate hat, settling decisively on my head. Silver slipped an arm around my shoulders – he'd done it a million times on this ship and each time, it had been for me, only me, and to think of it now made me ache. "You and me! Hawkins and Silver!" He was getting excited now, and I knew it; I knew it by the way he pushed suddenly away from me, I knew it by the flush in his cheeks and I knew it by the smile taking shape on his lips. "Full of ourselves and no ties to anyone!" His words painted a picture in my mind, and it was almost too beautiful to turn away from.
I looked up at him then, and I saw in all of his excitement and all his painted pictures just how easy it would be; I could see it all laid out before me in his eyes, could see him settling beside me on the bench, could hear our laughter as the skiff fell from the hangar, could almost feel the cool breeze blowing in onto our faces and billowing out our clothes, and he'd have his arm around me and I'd have a smile on my face and I would let him take me away and I would look out at the stars, maybe look back at the spaceport just once, just to see it one more time, to think of home, to think of Mom, remember them…
Mom.
The beautiful images shattered before my eyes.
Mom would be there at the spaceport; Mom would be waiting for me when I came home again, I had someone waiting for me. And she'd been waiting for me to come back long enough.
I was ready to go home again.
So I smiled, to keep myself from crying, and I smiled to soften the words because I knew they'd hurt, they'd sting and scrape and burn on their way out, but I had to say them. I took the hat off my head; I could tell Silver recognized the wordless rejection, and I spoke then, because I wanted at least one of us to walk away from this unhurt. "You know, when I got on this boat, I would've taken you up on that offer in a second." I stepped forward, a little closer to the open hatchway, and stared out at the skies. I wouldn't see them. Not today. I knew that I could have, and I could be as endless and everlasting as Silver had always seemed to me. But there was something else waiting for me. Something other than Mom. And I was more than ready to meet it.
"But, uh…I met this old cyborg…" I spoke softly, because that was all I knew how to be right now. "And he taught me…" My eyes stung, vision blurring; scarlet and silver merged before my eyes, but I smiled because I didn't want to cry here. "…that I could chart my own course…" I still remembered his hands on my shoulders and his voice in my ears, the tears pricking at my eyes and soaking into my skin, falling into the thin white fabric of his shirt; when I closed my eyes, I could still feel his arms around me, all the warmth and strength and reassurance in them, and I knew suddenly that it would be the hardest thing in the world to walk away from. But there was something else waiting for me, and I'd been waiting for it or maybe it had been waiting for me, for long enough now. "…and that's what I'm gonna do." My throat was tight with unshed tears.
"And what do you see?" Silver's voice was low and prodding, yet warm. "Off that bow of yours?"
I smiled then, not to keep from crying, but because I knew the answer to his question, and because I had something to smile about. "A future."
A future was waiting for me back home, and it'd been waiting for me long enough.
When Silver laughed, it sounded shakier than it should have. "Look at ya," he whispered, and he sounded happy and sad and proud all at the same time. "Glowin' like a…a solar flare. Yer somethin' special, Jim." His voice dropped. He didn't speak under his breath or behind his hand, but I was starting to think maybe I liked it better that way. "Ya're gonna rattle the stars, ya are."
I don't know which of us stepped forward first, but I guess it didn't really matter all that much; either way, I ended up in his arms. And I told myself to remember it, every piece of it – his metal fingers gently squeezing my shoulder and his flesh hand tangling in my hair and his warm breath on the side of my face and his chest, rising and falling beneath my ear. I buried my face in his coat and breathed in deep, and I told myself to remember every last bit of it, because it would be the last time I'd ever feel it. The thought was almost enough to make me change my mind.
When he pushed away from me, I let him; I let him turn away, I let him mumble and mutter about grease in the gears of his cyborg eye, and I stood there and I didn't say anything, because it would hurt – it would hurt so much, it might hurt almost more than I could stand to let him go. But I knew it would hurt that much worse if I tried to hold onto him.
I could feel the tears gathering in my eyes again, but I swiped them away and smiled – not because I didn't want to cry, but because I wanted to smile. I wanted to smile, and I wanted Silver to remember me like this, just like this; I wanted him to remember me with a smile on my face because that was exactly how I wanted to remember him.
Out of the three of us, all wiping surreptitiously at our eyes and forcing smiles onto our faces, Morph was the only one who actually cried – took one look at me and started bawling, sobbing so hard he reduced himself to a tiny puddle of clear blue water. I let him fall into my cupped hands, talking in the most consoling way I could. "Hey, no, Morph, it's okay. I'll see you around."
"See you around," he gurgled unhappily, fluttering back over to Silver.
The cyborg stared at him a minute – a trembling pink blob resting sadly on his index finger. Then Silver drew himself up, in the exact same way he did whenever he was about to give me a new chore. "Morphy." His voice came out a bark. "I got a job for ya."
Morph nodded gloomily.
"I need ya," and Silver's voice was softer now, "to keep an eye on this 'ere pup."
It took a minute for me to get what he was saying; the second I did, I tried to protest, opening my mouth and shaking my head, but Morph chirped cheerfully, rushing to my side and nuzzling my cheek. I wanted to bat him away; to reject him; to tell him he belonged to Silver, and that was the way it should be and he should want to stay with Silver…but he was staying. With me. My throat tightened again, eyes beginning to burn. The little morph next to me might not have looked like much, but he…he was a piece of Silver, and he was staying with me. Silver was leaving a piece of himself with me, and it was the kind of piece I couldn't just give back.
"Oh," Silver added, once he had scrambled into the skiff, "and one more thing!" He added the words like an afterthought, but when he took the coins from his coat and tossed them to me, the gesture looked so practiced that I had to wonder if he'd planned it that way all along. "For yer dear mother," he said by way of explanation. "To rebuild that inn of hers."
I had to smile – and I smiled to keep from crying and I smiled because I had something to smile about and I smiled because I wanted to smile but mostly, I smiled because I wanted him to remember me smiling and I wanted to remember him smiling. "Stay out of trouble," I called down to him – and I knew it was impossible, I knew it couldn't happen and it wouldn't do any good to pretend and I knew real life didn't take no for an answer, but I almost…I almost fell silent after the first word. "You old scalawag."
"Jimbo, lad," he laughed, years melting off his face as if they'd never been, "when have I ever done otherwise?" He leaned out over the rail of the boat and waved, he waved to me until the clouds and stars swallowed him up, welcoming him. Welcoming him back. He was coming home to them.
And it was about time I did the same.
After all, my future was waiting for me there.
